Lines for an insane president

 

PANDEMIC REMARKS ON THE HOUSE OF PRESIDENT INSANE

 

"A man feared that he might find an assassin;

Another that he might find a victim.

One was more wise than the other."

 

Stephen Crane, The Black Rider and Other Lines, LVI

 

 

I resent President Insane, a certified draft-dodger, fixing his mouth to say women and men who have died in American  military battles are suckers and losers.  I am a Vietnam veteran and entitled to address these words to President Insane-------

 

Draftdodger, I will not cast

the visual purple of my gaze

in your snuff movie,

witness the obscene grin

of your wicked camera

witnessing

the unlovely surprised

death agonies

of that girl.

 

I am still in Vietnam, and it in me.

I aim higher for the enemy.

I aim to shatter

the blue iris

of your eye,

Draftdodger.

 

I wrote these lines three decades ago, but they are not sufficient.  Resentment is not sufficient.

Neither anger nor contempt is sufficient. Justice demands that words introduce President Insane to Eternity.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            9/5/2020 10:57:47 AM

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas, Kwanzaa, 2018

Blog 12.19.2017 CHRISTMAS I have a reason for not being anxious to celebrate Advent and Christmas Day.   Sixty years ago, my father died on December 25.   Fifty-nine years ago, my favorite uncle died a few days before Christmas.   I do want other people to be happy, but I am most at peace when Christmas has gone with the snow, the sunshine or rain, the wind.   I still say "Merry Christmas."   The only genuine happiness I experience, however, is listening to Handel's "The Messiah" and a few songs I've treasured since childhood,   attending Midnight Mass, having home-made fruitcake   after Mass, and eating a special meal with relatives on the excessively commercialized holiday. KWANZAA Umoja ---Decide with whom you should seek unity. Kujichagulia --Expand the terms of engagement for 2018. Ujima ---Cooperate on a project with people you can trust. Ujamaa --Be frugal.   Shop selectively. Nia ---Remember ou...
Read more

implacable violence, part one

Implacable Violence, Part One The death of Senator John McCain quickens our   interest in how to deal with contemporary   narratives of life history.   McCain's touchstone story pertains to American conservative values, the consequences of trauma,   military and public service, violence, and   a sense of honor.   Barack Obama's differently remarkable narratives direct attention to the absence of military service, class and caste violence, the audacity of hope, centralist values, and diversity in the history of "race."   Narratives about McCain and Obama stand in noteworthy contrast to future narratives about Donald Trump, stories that may place ego in the foreground as they unfold tales of sexism, constipated values,     inadvertent racism, the violence of capitalism, sleight of mouth, and avoidance of military service.   Ego, self-fashioning, and boldness are apparent in the three sets of narrative, but excess lynches the Trump set...
Read more

Poem9.16.2019

THE POEM UNDONE To be addressed at a beach she thought most square. To be called to a window to see what ought to be heard. What might sting like a mosquito infecting one with knowledge. She thought of Yeats, of Leda, of time, the coming of a terrifying swan. Did he say the sea's calm, tamed by moonbeams, when sound visualized is turbulent? Is music's allegory of war no more than conceits of violence gathering to clash in the death of light? How violated can a body be? What's put in pain by a mosquito's ignorant gift, by its eternal tweet of sadness, by retarded misery's ebb and flow and slow torture of climate changing? Such faith, such hope, such charity did Antigone, imitating Isis,   sprinkle on a corpse. Honi   soit qui mal y pense and mea culpa invades the heart. Tragedy has gone with the breeze somewhere to fall apart in another country, t o alarm with ...
Read more