David X Novak
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We Must Tremble to Reflect

7/21/2017

 

The party of Lincoln devolved into this
    A den full of gangsters and thieves,
Not skirting but plunging into the abyss,
    Most sure when it mostly deceives.

A hatful of gangsters could do no more harm
    Than this authorized evil cabal— 
Some voters succumbed to hypocrisy’s 
charm,
    Are such voters the worst of them all?

Or is it the oilman who broke the law
    Now servicing greed before country,
Who isn’t concerned about arctic ice thaw
    Cahooting with Russia for bounty?

Or is it the justice who willingly took
    His seat in a vacancy stolen
Upon the high court—ill gains gotten by crook— 
    Which he drilled his own ethics-sized hole in?

Or is it the bankers, high-placed Goldman Sachs
    Executives to wealth beholden,
Who in the economy exploit the cracks
    To gain them a parachute golden?

Or is it the oafs with their mandates to “cut”
    Who level their axes toward plunder,
And see the environment something to gut,
    Not beautifully worthy of wonder.


Or is it that woman-whose-brother’s-a-killer,
    For whom ignorance, murder, 
and slaughter
Are “Christian in spirit,” no Christ at the tiller
    That guides her through muck and blackwater.

Or is it the hacks in the legisla-chure
    Who dance at the Koch Brothers‘ bidding,
Conferring for guidance when conscience ain’t sure— 
    What consciences? who are we kidding?

Or is it the cheeses now perched at the top,
    Both prezzing and veeping by peril,
Who feast on rich sauces while feeding the slop,
    For the poor hardly scraping the barrel?


Oh, Lincoln would heave, Frederick Douglass would sigh
To see the Old Party commencing to fall,
Destroying the Union, for profits laid by,
Republican “virtues” become cannibal,
And knowing men’s hearts neither man would ask why:
Republican voters are worst of them all,
The party itself a despicable sty,
And—if God is just—he would damn the cabal
.

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