No Need
By Craig R. Kirchner
I’m told constantly not to talk about it.
Half your friends and family will be offended.
You don’t want to express your disgust,
and you can’t quote their guy.
Quoting his remarks is damning,
there’s always a disconnect.
If you take one of his threats,
or rants on his hatred out of context,
you’re accused of misrepresentation.
If you put them back into their context
they become worse, unhinged, long winded.
I don’t want to talk about it, it makes me ill.
I do want to talk about the fact
that we fought WWII to rid the planet
of governments that ruled on doctrines
of fear, hate and retribution.
No one should forget that leaders
that come to power telling you
only they can fix it with hate of the other,
be it jews, blacks, immigrants, gays,
carry through on their hate.
So, I don’t need to point out
that not knowing how to tell the truth
and constantly degrading our country,
creating narratives of distrust that threaten life
should be disqualifying. None of this
should need to be said, so I’m passing
on the project, don’t want to piss anyone off.
Craig Kirchner is retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop. These words tend to keep him straight. After a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing, WordSwell, 7th Circle Pyrite, Edge of Humanity, Fairfield Scribe, Fixator, Flora Fiction, Globe Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Ink in Thirds, Spillwords, Sybil, The Argyle, The Lake, Timada’s Diary, Unbroken, Unlikely Stories, Valiant Scribe, Variety Pack, Versification, Wild Violet, Wise Owl, Yellow Mama, Young Ravens, Arlington Literary, Glacial Hills Review, Your Impossible Voice, Mad Swirl, Oddball Mag, Zin Daily, Poetry Breakfast, One Art, The Main Street Rag and several dozen others.