Neo Confederate...

© May 14, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Member of the defunct,

“Know-Nothing” Party,

John Wilkes Booth thought he was a patriot,

When he assassinated the 16th president of the United States,

At Ford’s Theater, April 14, 1865,

On Good Friday,

 

He heard of Robert E. Lee’s surrender,

To Ulysses S. Grant

Two days before at Appomattox,

Hearing Lincoln state he would give suffrage,

To former slaves,

The would-be assassin stated:

That would be the last speech Abraham Lincoln would ever make.

 

He gaslighted himself heroic,

Yelling the Latin phrase:

Sic Semper Tyrannus (thus always for tyrants),

Attributed to Brutus,

At the assassination of Caesar,

He injured himself when the getaway horse

Fell on the

Wannabe confederate action figure,

A one hundred thousand dollars bounty put on him,

 

1.67 million in 2021 dollars,

Woods scouted by American troops,

The reviews in newspapers unflattering:

 

“Accursed devil,” “monster,” “madman,” and a “wretched fiend.”

 

Frederick Douglass rightly called it an unspeakable calamity,

 

Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston said Booth’s act “a disgrace to the age,”

 

Robert E. Lee,

Who’s surrender on behalf of the defeated south,

Inadvertently inspired the sociopath,

Said he regretted Lincoln died,

At Booths’ delusional hands.

 

Cornered in a tobacco barn,

His getaway accomplice David Herold surrendered,

Booth, Homo Stultus, and defiant to the end,

Authorities set the building on fire,

Shot him through the neck in the blaze,

The insurrectionist died of his injuries,

“Tell my mother I died for my country,”

Gaslighting to the bitter end.

 

John Wilkes Booth thought he was a patriot: he was not.

Lee Harvey Oswald murdering Kennedy from a Dallas library repository thought he was a patriot: he was not.

Charles Whitman, UT Tower shooter, killing 15 (including an unborn child), wounded 31 others; he thought he was a patriot: he was not.

Neither are the savages who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021,

Or, the demagogue they followed to overthrow the republic,

Each should receive proper recompense for their actions,

If we’re a nation of laws and equal justice,

 

Mass shootings are the product of fearful men,

Masking their impotence in violence,

They are more dangerous now than when

Booth shot the salvo,

Inaugurating violence,

April 14, 1865,

On the worst “Good Friday” on record,

(If you discount the first one)

As “accepted” political discourse,

Calling the callous “patriots,”

 

Relying on alternative facts,

Romanized treasonous acts,

Smeared feces compared to heavenly golden streets,

Urine in Capitol hallways to lands flowing with milk and honey,

Assault of Police Officers compared to “rowdy tourists,”

Twisting scripture to fit their needs,

Gaslighting themselves with QANON shamans,

Every action projection, and confession,

Neo Confederate fascists,

Lying to first themselves and others,

Shouting ancient Latin: Sic Semper Tyrannus!