Daniel Sokoloff
Coronation
I watched the boldest,
the richest fools our country had to offer
gather in their moot,
all to declare to each other, and maybe to us,
why they should lead us, and no one else.
Hypocrites and sociopaths the lot of them,
business as usual, but something unexpected happened:
a goblin snuck in.
Grey clouds gather,
and I try to tell myself
that they are just the envoys of winter.
All this, the freezing winds,
the threat of cities buried in snow like powder,
the absent sun,
it’s just winter as usual.
There’s a part of me that wants to relax,
just take it easy and ignore the news
the way so many ignored the election
but the politics don’t feel abstract now.
The goblin has dredged up the nastiest
ideas, set the politics of identity to war,
and now even looking in the mirror
reveals a complicated spiral.
I’m bisexual, but I’ve got white skin,
maybe that means I’ll make it through this era alive;
But then again, most Jews pass for white, until the men
robed like ghosts remind us that
no, we aren’t white after all.
I never thought I would be like this, so
political.
Fear is corrosive,
and we’ve all caught it,
even those who cheered as the goblin
shouted down the career politicians,
and danced the fiery dance that so many angry people
felt for their common man.
Fear is the reason we’re turning on one another;
I would say it’s like a wildfire, but that isn’t right.
It’s more like a catchy tune you hear,
one you hate, but it’s so simple and persistent,
so prevalent, there’s really no avoiding it, and eventually
you can’t get it out of your head, no matter how hard you try,
and before you know it,
when some goblin steps forward to accept
a crown that is far too heavy for his neck to support,
and they play that catchy tune,
you find yourself nodding along with it,
a touch of warmth.
Daniel Sokoloff is a poet from Philadelphia. His poems have appeared in The Basil O’Flaherty and Anti-Heroin Chic. For more about Daniel and his work, visit Lokepoet.weebly.com.
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