THIS MACHINE in poetry

Ted Williams killed fascists.
Hank Greenberg killed fascists.
Jackie Robinson killed fascists.
My grandpa killed fascists.

Dwight Eisenhower killed fascists.
John Kennedy killed fascists.
George Herbert Walker Bush killed fascists.
Ulysses S. Grant killed fascists
before we even had a name for them.
Your grandpa killed fascists.

Indiana Jones killed fascists.
Superman killed fascists.
Wonder Woman killed fascists.
Bugs Bunny killed fascists.
Private Ryan killed fascists.
Nearly all of our grandpas killed fascists.

Ernest Hemmingway killed fascists.
George Orwell killed fascists.
J.D. Salinger killed fascists.
Gore Vidal killed fascists.
Kurt Vonnegut killed fascists.
Every good grandpa we know of killed fascists.

Jimmy Stewart killed fascists.
Mel Brooks killed fascists.
Sir Alec Guinness… Obi-Wan Kenobi!… killed fascists.
Lenny Bruce killed fascists.
Sir Christopher Lee… Count Dracula, Sauron…
Sir Christopher Lee killed so many fascists
the British intelligence service lost count.
Now, on the other hand…

Fred Trump marched with fascists in Queens
in 1927 because he and the Ku Klux Klan thought
Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to cops.
Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the piece of shit
what a terrible landlord and person Freddy Trump was
and Woody’s guitar told us what good machines do.

Donald Trump from a golf cart in New Jersey
leads fascists to march on our city streets
to beat us with poles and kill us with cars.
How will history remember us?
How will history remember you?

Last updated August 14, 2017