POEM: "Never Forget Willie Horton"

I pray to God that we never forget Willie Horton,
Or the many many others whose pain, 
Whose tortured days are just so many shadows, 
Colors to be manipulated by ambitious men and their boosters, 
Running for office, building empires
In Moscow and Kennebunk, Manhattan and Houston, too.

Whatever else the man would be, whatever else his life leaves now,
The candidate brazenly used race and the trumped-up fears
Of voters everywhere--swing states, purple states, altered states.
Be afraid, he said, of Willie and every other black man, 
Every other brown man, and all the leftists (like Mike) 
Who would let the darkside rage and run (does this sound familiar?) 
Rampant and unrepentant across your swing state streets.

That was 1988, twenty-eight years before the summer of Trump,
But the candidate then anticipated the meaner man,
Though his patrician-like angles, his Andover pedigree,
His softer style seems sweeter now.

The rotunda rituals are noble, and the generous recollections
Of gentler times, and those thousand points of light.
But I remember the 80s as the decade two presidents
Forged a twisted alliance with fundamentalist hypocrites.
I remember the 80s as the decade they betrayed Congress
(And the Constitution) to arm Central American sadists.
I remember the fall of 1988 as the campaign
These forerunners used Willie Horton and the oldest
And meanest American fears to win an election.

It was no golden age.

12-3-18
Scottsdale, AZ
DGJ