Trump in Chains

It is well posed,
one must give the devil credit:
defiance shouts, frozen in fury,
at the top of grievance,
as petulant as it is silent;
the furious eye, triumphant in mockery,
disdains the camera and, through its harsh lens,
you.

But there is no gratification.
A dull ache, sequela from a blow,
taken long ago,
swells in the soul
of even the most opposed
when faced with this
humiliation.

No: no gratification,
only sorrow
at this portrait
of the folly of mankind
at war with itself, nature, and the gods,
taken in the bowels of a southern jail.
There, but for the grace of the devil,
go I.

Christopher Bernard's collection The Socialist's Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was named one of the "Top 100 Indie Books of 2021" by Kirkus Reviews. His two books "for children and their adults," If You Ride a Crooked Trolley . . .  and The Judgment of Biestia, the first in the series Otherwise - will be published in November 2023.