by Jen Hinton
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| At least two recent incidents in which empty chairs were hung from trees by rope have critics decrying what they say are racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the “lynching” of President Barack Obama. --NBC News |
When I see an empty chair dangling
from a tree, makes me wonder,
Who ruined the Feng Shui?
Perhaps a rampaging tornado
or a vile hurricane blew it up there,
whipped up on the fury of rhetoric?
Likely also, a duty-bound sheriff
at the behest of a ravaging investment broker,
upchucked that post-eviction relic?
Or heck, maybe the chair himself
had enough of these petty people’s
buttocks down here on Terra Firma
and crawled up there on his own?
Tree limbs and tree bark, beckoned
his wooden legs, “Come back brother,
you were once one of us.”
Chair with the good sense to know.
Now up on high, he’s acquired the
vantage point of the birds and squirrels
who are also brainless;
he's up there now,
looking down at the asses of Earth.
Jen Hinton is a writer and college administrator living in Schaumburg, IL. Her previous NVN poem, Something for Harvey, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
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