Monday, June 2, 2014

Used to Be a Time

At the three-day
Republican Leadership Conference

the Republican National Chairman
Reince Priebus asked

"Why does the party 
of Abraham Lincoln

not get more credit
as the party of tolerance?"

Lest we forget
Lincoln's calculating pragmatism
that conveniently brought down

the institution of human ownership
in the process

it's still true that those
who cannot remember

the past of thirty years
fifteen years
six years
or even six days ago

are condemned to repeat it

and those that have never listened
to Janet Jackson's 1986 hit

"What Have You Done
for Me Lately?"

are doomed to hear
a larger and larger proportion
of society

blast the infectiously
forboding tune
and leave the Old Party.

(It was Grand
while it lasted.)

This poem © 2014 Emily Cooper.