"peace for our time"

(I get it.) When sky’s blue, night should be black.
Blood is red while the mind strives to be white.
Ulster’s British orange, IRA green.
Adopt the childhood meaning of yellow.
History still in thrall to Neville Chamberlain?
Sudetenland sacrificed, Poland blitzkrieged . . .

Throw the black man out,
keep the White House white!
Children die here and there,
in Connecticut, in Syria.
(Listen to that dove Charles Mingus
play Let My Children Hear Music.)

Remember Franco’s Nazis and Fascists
perfecting the technology of death
in Spain. Jews seeking asylum in ships
enter Liberty’s harbor and are turned away.
Gas draws no blood. Stash corpses out of sight.
As the nation cries, Peace! Death smiles.

(revised 8 September 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander