but was born in the wrong era
even though he tries to assume the
role in modern times and dreams those flabby
wattles firmed into the mountainous
stone of Mount Rushmore with the
other great presidents where he knows
he belongs as the statues come down
he poses as if he could join one eternal
and turns to the computer and twitter
away as if an eternal mockingbird
that ignores the twenty first century
and will bring back the America
that split into the democracy and the
autocracy supported by the labor
of slavery subject to their murder
in the pretense of maintaining law
and order which masks prejudice
and chauvinism that supports
the fake humanism of the fox
slinks in to empty arenas and
pretends there is always an admiring
crowd of empty seats that do not clap
Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his published poetry will be published in early summer.