Confederate Monument

//Confederate Monument

Confederate Monument

By Luke A. Powers

High above
Courthouse square

Atop an impossibly
Tall pillar

He has stood
Sentinel now

A hundred years
Summers, winters,

Facing a South
Always farther away

Waiting for word
Signal, reinforcement

Until he’s gone
Blind in alabaster

In cap and gloves
His buttons smooth

Leaning on a rifle
That like his face

Is losing definition
The vestige of history

He wants to come down
He can’t remember

The high deeds
The sacred cause

The ideas that make
Blood turn to stone

The sky is swept
Clean of martyrs

Clouds fray in bliss
In sweet nothingness

He wants to come down
Laid in cool earth

Like a dark seed that
Will never grow anything

But a deep forgetfulness
Past echoes of rumor

Where none of this
Ever happened

None of this, not
A single minie ball,

Ever was—

But still he stands
At his post

Sun and moon
Unmourned, undead

Waiting only for
This past to be done.

 

 


Luke A. Powers teaches English at Tennessee State University, an historically black university in Nashville. He is a singer-songwriter who has worked with Garth Hudson (of The Band) and Sneaky Pete Kleinow (of The Flying Burrito Brothers). He’s also a member of The Spicewood Seven, who have released two protest albums: Kakistocracy (2006) and Still Mad (2016), both of which are musical acts of resistance of the dumbed-down, low-information culture that elected George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

Image credit: Yelp.

By | 2017-09-02T12:08:50-07:00 September 7th, 2017|Categories: Issue 39: 07 Sep 2017|Tags: , |0 Comments

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