By Joseph Milosch
Here are the sound-bytes: there has never been an Irish Catholic President. Vietnam is still a French Province. Vicksburg, Missouri has yet to celebrate the Fourth of July. Nobody speaks about racism. Black teenagers have not integrated Missouri schools.
Here are the poems: Sonnets about women with pearl teeth and spearmint breathe. Villanelles about Davy Crockett begin with the line, “Be sure you’re right….” Similes about roses and doves spin like a whirl wind. Metaphors about beavers, bears, lions, and lambs are rusted like old wire fences. Words paint pictures of abandoned farms and rusting rails.
Here is the film of flashing fire: People surround a bonfire.
They are laughing. One woman wears a hat with a white lace rim. She is wearing a white dress and laughing. Next to her, a man wears a hat in the style of Dick Tracy. It is pushed back on his head. Laughing, he points at the bonfire.
In this film the scene could be of a high-school pep-rally.
Everybody is laughing except the black man swinging by his neck above the bonfire like a pendulum. Here is a looking glass: Night comes. Crickets chirp. Urine stains a dirt road. Fresh sweat on foreheads marks the appearance of hatred, bitterness, and somewhere the agony of being the mirror as well as the face in it passes from generation to generation.