Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean – 2021 in review - 4. Part Four: The Fly

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Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean –

2021 in review

by AC Benus

“By gnawing through a dyke,

even a rat may drown a nation.”

—Edmund Burke, ^[i]

circa 1759

Part Four:

The Fly

XX.

The ultimate symbol of elitism,

He even boasted with a glinting sneer

That he could get away with mass murder.

As it stands now, it’s even worse, for

He’s getting away with stabbing our way of life

In the back like a pouting frat boy. [ii]

XXI.

“Mitch McConnell; Mitch McConnell,

Send your hypocrisy right over—

For your Fat-Cat money funnel

Keeps ‘forcing the city gates’ we treasure

With your criminalities’ pull

To be our Constitution’s betrayer.”

XXII.

The Fly

the fly has arms

these arms go to the eyes

to wipe the slime

gathered there in filth

then slimy hands

go into the fly’s mouth

so it can suck

the dirty into its soul

sputum; maggots

the Gop party infects

democracy’s corpse

with their hatred

they think we’re dead

that we have given up

and accept lies

as their par-for-the-course

but our freedom

has one last summer day

to fend off the rot

they’ve seeded deep in us

will we take it

take the slight time we have

to clean the wound,

or will we die?

XXIII.

Sestina

This then is the Gop’s idea of kinder,

Their degenerated sense of gentler,

To ignore the police prone to murder,

To break bones, crush skulls in sustained mayhem

And rubber-stamp their wicked hearts depraved,

Knowing at root, the Party’s a bully.

Every minority they now bully,

Making a mockery of their kinder

Words which nothing mean ‘cept to the depraved

Who go out hunting for victims gentler

To shoot down in the street and drive mayhem

Like fear down the throat of random murder.

For who protects and serves when cops murder,

Knowing their whims are sheltered by bully

Tactics in Congress akin to mayhem

As the Gops filibuster laws kinder

To a beleaguered public whose gentler

Instincts get daily crushed by the depraved?

Their “Qualified Immunity’s” depraved

When it leads to unjustified murder

Being cops’ default position gentler

To say Blue Lives matter like a bully,

Never once thinking how to be kinder

When their one weapon is public mayhem.

When the public wants an end to mayhem,

They have nowhere to go that’s not depraved;

No hand to seek that’s actually kinder

From a force that’s unconcerned with murder

At the hands of one it knows is a bully,

But keeps on the street to become gentler.

So, hollow the Gops’ words about gentler,

When for political ends, it’s mayhem

They promote with the fear of a bully

That knows nothing but how to be depraved,

Turning blind eyes to organized murder

And call brutality their kind of kinder.

Envoi

So where’s your kinder; how about your gentler?

Do you want murder; do you need mayhem

To stay this depraved and act the bully? [iii]

XXIV.

What could be more hateful in this country

Than the two Jim Crow tools the Gops protect?—

Which spit in the face of the Land of the Free

With contempt for those they do not respect.

Their Filibuster’s used to oppress some,

While the Electoral College maintains

The white few rule the many for years to come,

No matter who wins election campaigns.

The Senate minority wields power

To see that 30% ‘NO!’ votes win

To make The People’s agenda cower

‘Neath Big-Money politics’ glaring sin.

What could be more racist in this nation

Than the Jim Crow hacks the Gops use to sway?—

Which they wield as sledge-hammer damnation

On Truth, Justice – the American Way. [iv]

XXV.

Villanelle

“Now, can you guess the color of their skin . . . ”

Cries out a guilty national conscience,

Knowing it’s our true original sin.

For beneath absolution’s origin

Curls the poison, viper-like Judas hiss

“Now, can you guess the color of their skin . . . ”

And self-hatred has no self-discipline

In its arbitrary nature’s compass,

Knowing it’s our true original sin.

‘Cause cornered venom like adrenalin

Bites the words of their victims’ forgiveness

“Now, can you guess the color of their skin . . . ”

So what future is there to imagine

Where we’ll be able to overcome this,

Knowing it’s our true original sin.

Although past and present are maudlin,

They’re nothing compared to the future’s abyss—

“Now, can you guess the color of their skin . . . ”

Knowing it’s our true original sin.

XXVI.

The question

At one time used to be

How can we work the best together

To enhance our tremendous opportunities

As a nation pulling as a team,

Setting squabbles aside

As minor.

And yet now

One Party’s made rancour

Their ‘get out the vote’ mainstay of hate,

Hissing like the snake in our Garden of Eden

That ‘the others’ are coming for you,

So against self-interest,

Vote Repub.

Lies, lies, lies,

And privately funded

Propaganda’s how they stay in charge,

Deceiving worst those who can ill afford their greed,

Syphoning their taxes for the rich

In bait and switch, smoke-screen

Politics.

So I ask,

What will remove the plank

From their ever splinter-seeking eyes,

When they’ve lied to and deceived by Republicans,

Who only con folks in their blindness

To follow them to Hell,

And like it.

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