|
|
|
Added 6 July 2000
This poem was inspired by a Klu Klux Klan hood on display at the Maryland Heritage Museum.
The eyeholes are feared and fearful.
A whole clan of horrors thrust out
from the darkened attic
where that atrocious attire was found.
Restless, nervous, disgusted.
These are my emotions.
A part of the white muslin
is open and free to touch,
not caged by glass.
I could touch it,
but I can't.
It holds too much power,
contains too much evil.
So I dance around it fearing
to present it with
a stationary target.
Without thinking about it
my pacing semi-circle around the Hate
grows to great distance.
Even from here I can see the eyes
and what they once saw.
It's like I am him,
little and loathing.
Shit! To be him!
. . . I could scarcely be worse.
If my head were to make
that flattened cap
fill up with a face,
if its withered form
once more inflated . . .
such horror would spread!
The careless folds ensure
that those holes constantly
focus upon me.
Where ever I wander,
I glance and they pierce me.
I could touch the hood
if I wanted, probe it with this pen.
But I don't.
And I don't.
And I don't.
I get close and
have to back away.
|
|
|
|