Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean – 2021 in review - 1. Part One: Past as Prologue

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Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean –

2021 in review

by AC Benus

“God offers to every mind

its choice between truth and repose.

Take which you please—

—you can never have both.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson ^[i]

1840s

Part One:

From a Time of Plague I

I.

Remember the Maine

Remember Pearl Harbor

Remember 9/11—

Remember January 6th.

Each one, except one,

Was a foreign attack –

A force outside our land –

Except one led by Donald Trump.

Remember One-Six

Remember all the lies

Remember the Gops did it

Remember January 6th. [ii]

II.

Forgive and forget?

Fuck that.

Move on, they say,

The criminals,

To which we all say

Fuck that

& Fuck you—

Rot in jail and see if

The Dumpster,

For whom you broke

The rule of the Constitution,

Will do a thing to

Even pretend he gives

A shit about you,

You idiots, you Gops.

Fuck that

& Fuck you. [iii]

III.

What Bozos – those who ranked The Dumpster

The Four Worst president in history—

Attempting to complete their summary

Of his inactions and ineptitudes

Before the January 6th razzamatazz

Could change their minds in a blinding hurry.

But think how short is public memory

When a natural-born loser has,

Like Dump, not even the evil energy

To be ranked the barrel-scraped

Worst humanity’s ever seen . . .

But then again, the scholars’ work

Was premature, and they set the bar

Lower than even the lowest benchmark

The Nation has ever imagined

For someone being a so-called president—

Before the January 6th razzamatazz. [iv]

IV.

If past is prologue, what is the present?—

Who from the point of time a few years back

Could have guessed the debasement of attack

The have-it-alls would use as argument:

“To Hell with free votes – trust Gops or repent

Your sin of not believing we’d hijack

Your rights with a megalomaniac!”

So if the prologue’s past, what’s the present?—

On January 6th, their Party flew

America as a jetliner in

The Ground Zero of democracy.

Yet everyone in the past always knew

The Repubs would do our country in

Through greed and their own mediocracy.

V.

If there’s a hope in this world, it might come

Believing every dog will have his day,

And the Big Lie supporters must succumb

To facing the Truth, no matter what they say.

Let them come to find out how they were used—

Their taxes raised; their healthcare corrupted;

Their religions mocked; their racism abused

To have our freedoms rolled back; undid.

So I’m glad their kids laugh in their faces,

Knowing they’ll never vote Republican,

For it’s a cult of Hate with no places

For decent folks, their realities or kin.

The only hope is, it’s gotten this bad,

And they made their own children fucking mad. [v]

VI.

Ballade

Septimius Severus lives in my song –

The Roman emperor who turned lunatic,

Hater of laws, proponent of every wrong,

Who used the mob to brawl for his every trick

And tear down their own nationhood brick by brick –

But my Severus a modern country baits

Into murderous-suicide politic;

Rome didn’t survive; will the United States?

Though of different times, both weaponize the throng,

And if Severus knew more of rhetoric,

The loud Gops simply know how to prolong

The confusion they’ve sprinkled like arsenic

In the minds of their rabble, whose skulls are thick

And can never keep track of the facts or dates

Their Party’s leaders sing and dance like a schtick;

Rome didn’t survive; will the United States?

The Emperor’s accomplishments? Diving headlong

Into a ruined economy; Benedict

Arnolds made of former patriots once strong,

But grabbing all they could for themselves, and quick,

‘Fore everything fell apart under that prick

Spreading beneath him a plethora of hates

For liberty, justice, anything not sick –

Rome didn’t survive; will the United States?

Envoi

So, you – modern reader – will you be maverick

And resist the current Severus who waits

To destroy all, once and for all, just for a kick –

Rome didn’t survive; will the United States? [vi]

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