(On the Republican marriage ‘pledge’…Or…Slavery as ‘Retro’  Ya know, Hitler & his bunch did this in the ’20s & ’30s.  When you put out an outrageous idea over and over again, even if sometimes you say: “Oops, sorry about that one,” eventually the outrageous idea becomes part of what’s the norm.  Then gas chambers become acceptable. )

John Brown didn’t know

blacks would be better off

on the plantation

where a poor black child

didn’t come from

a broken home

he didn’t know

a black child would need

soldiers to take her to school

that some white folks would force

a black child to marry

outside her God-given race

that all this would lead

to rioting and looting

and the occasional lynching

John Brown didn’t know shit

about the value of being

bonded to your own people

that these chains of bondage

were actually a freedom

from everyday woe

according to John Brown

it’s good for a black child

to be hooked on crack

live in a ghetto not knowing

who mommy and daddy are

until she dies of AIDS

but we now make the pledge

to change all that

to go back to the good old days

when a black child lived carefree

and was secure in her place

with her mommy and daddy

when all black people

were our precious little childs

watched over by us their guardians

back when women too

walked the righteous walk

and did their duty without woe

oh this woe John Brown!

you flaming socialist abortionist!

abolition to your hateful legacies!

we pledge now to turn back the clock

on John Brown’s Godless revolution

restore the love of proper order

now and forever we pledge

no black child will walk the streets

with a hate-filled heart

because John Brown didn’t know

what would come to pass

when finally our eyes

have seen the Glory!

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.