820. SAYS THOU

SAYS THOU
'Darling, please, I've got to talk to you.'
Some bullshit, same talk, the kind
Kitty Foil used. 'I thought that was
some wrap for clearing up the Kitty
Litter box.' The guy who said that, trying
to be funny, I'd hoped, was apparently as
dumb as they come. I wandered off -
thinking to myself about what really is,
if it could be called - 'Civil War music' :
did it have a music, and did those songs
all have a theme? Death and carnage, OK,
those I understand, but what was said, back then,
about broken hearts and sweethearts left behind,
or the brother without a leg, or the one with
no arms and a scarred face? How cruel did it all
become? When families went against families,
no mercy was given. 'You married my fucking sister,
just to make her a Reb? I'll cut your nuts off', and
they did. Poor Lincoln, no wonder he so often
is depicted as looking like shit. And his stupid wife
no help either. Plus his little dead son.
-
I eventually wandered home, and found it in a book:
'During the late 1850's, it was nearly impossible
to find anyone who did not vociferously take an
opinion, not so much on slavery, as on the
dissolution, or not, of the Union. Slavery was
merely the foil used. It became so bad that,
for many, many thousands, the only solution
was to take a ship back to Europe, and resettle;
effectively ending any chances for eventual return.
What was lost, of course, by this exodus, is never
to be known - but, then again, neither will we
ever know how many were saved by their leaving.'
-
Unbelievable, somehow, that 'Kitty Foil'
had got me to thinking on this. How
crooked are the lines of the mind.