David X Novak
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A Switched Icon

5/15/2017

 

“A blessing for the master and a blessing for the slave,”
So slavery, in its heyday, was boasted of indeed,
And they were Christian owners whom the Lord always forgave,
For heaven countenances Christian avarice and greed— 

Or so the profiteers will hope authority can tell them
As they seek words of grace at Sunday’s sermon in the church,
Imputing gallantry to General Lee and Major Pelham,
Saints canonized within the faith as bearing lofty perch.

A war was fought so long ago twixt yankee and secesh,
In wake of which, posterity has kept the wounds afresh,
For—having lost—the scions of the old Confederate flag
Yearn for the days their pickup truck some “nigro boy” could drag.

“As I would not be slave so I would neither be a master,”
Quoth Lincoln to express the ideal of democracy,
But even chiseled words can be removed with a sandblaster,
As party hacks methodically efface “Land of the Free.”

Could anybody have foreseen that the “Party of Lincoln”
Could so degenerate to Mitch McConnell and his likes?
Upon a wine supremacist the party has been drinkin’,
Bandying “Law and Order,” blaming “vote fraud” and “tax hikes.”

Hypocrisy has driven men despite what they may say,
Though clawing at the Constitution, shredding it okay,
So long as God may sanction them that for their blessings pray,
While Mammon’s icon has been switched for Jesus by the way.

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