Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – John W. Ogilvie

As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.

                

In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post. 

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Loyalty Oath

by John W. Ogilvie

First they came for a fractional, marginal, minuscule percentage.

That was not me, so I said “Give Trump a chance.”

Then they came for the mainstream media.

But I had other media, so I said “He’s sure making a change.”

Then they reached in my wallet to pay for the wall.

I said, “Not what you promised, but I’ll sacrifice for my country.”

Then my job didn’t come back, and I lost my insurance, and my taxes went up.

But I was still loyal. Tired of the damn tweets, sure, but I still hoped he would turn it around.

Then someone took a shot at him. It wasn’t me.

“That’s stupid, and just plain wrong!” I said.

But he sent in the Feds, and now they have all my guns, and I’ve sworn allegiance to Trump. 

I wish to God I’d understood sooner who he really is.

-- with thanks to Pastor Martin Niemöller