kellybdc photo
By
Penn Kemp
Poem for an Awful Inauguration, Ongoing
One year on and it’s worse than we
could have imagined. Because news
is mostly fake but who can tell?
January 20, 2018
This Awful Inauguration day augurs so
dimly for us all, and we aren’t even in
the United States. The world awaits
uncertain of outcome, certain only that
meanness prevails of heart and intent.
We’ve dropped into the well of offal.
An Awful Inauguration day augurs well
for the unduly rich but poorly for poor
and dispossessed, for poor middle class.
This Awful Inauguration day augurs ill
for Obamacare, for the health of a nation,
for all illegal aliens and for alienated arts.
This Awful Inauguration day augurs dimly
for us all, and we aren’t even in the Year
of the vain Fire Rooster till January 28.
O weather vane, you parade your lies as
truth. You spin with the wind. You turn.
You twitter and trumpet trust topsy-turvy.
This Awful Inauguration day crows triumph
for the cock of the walk, king for a day, or
another four years. We withhold, withstand
his very dangerous flash in a very wide pan.
But we don’t withdraw. We march, we hold
on, hold to, truth as we know it. We refuse.
We are other. We are alien. We protest: these
Auguries of Inauguration are not innocent.
Penn Kemp
Penn Kemp is an activist Canadian poet, playwright and editor. Her latest works are two plays celebrating local hero and explorer, Teresa Harris, produced in 2017 and published by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Recent books include Barbaric Cultural Practice (quattrobooks.ca/books/barbaric-cultural-practice/) and two anthologies edited, Women and Multimedia and Performing Women (http://poets.ca/feministcaucus/livingarchives/). See www.pennkemp.weebly.com.