Four Years Ago Today—Murfin Verse on a Very Different Inaugural

 

Four years ago with Donald Trump taking an oath he never meant to keep, my mood was very different than the joyful celebration today.  This poem was an introduction to my Poems of Resistance, the bulk of all my verse these last years

January 20, 2017

The locomotives are aligned on a single track,

            throttles lashed wide open,

            the engineers jump as they pick up speed

            belching black smoke and urgency.

 

The time has come, nothing can stop it now.

 

There is nothing to do but stare slack jawed

            or turn your head and cringe.

 

If in your enthusiasm for the spectacle

            and to get your money’s worth

            for the excursion ticket,

            you crowd too eagerly close,

            you are riddled with cast iron shrapnel

            and scalding steam.

 

It’s exactly like that.

 

—Patrick Murfin