4662. HABEUS CORPUS CHRISTI

HABEUS CORPUS CHRISTI

A town in Texas, perhaps? Or a new title by

Ashbery or Seidel? Calhoun, Sumter, Lincoln,

Webster  -  all them old-time dudes fighting off

their plague. I never cared, nor understood.

John Brown's body did what it should. Now

John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave.

-

As it seems to me, under Autumn sky, under

April's fronds, under Lincoln's last-in-the-courtyard 

bloomed lilacs, we should at least  -  if we are teaching

a History  -  teach the Truth. The Truth is that all

facts lie and there's not a nothing that's not another

attempt at twisting the truth.

-

'The veriest spawn of the 'Father of Lies' is

that creeping creature called compromise.

Come to your senses! Up! Arise!'

-

October 1859 burned the distance between the

bridges  - all hate and solidarity now had their

forces aligned. 'John Brown was hanged, and just

in time,' they said. 'Stop those Abolitionist bastards
where their mothers dined.Their pabulum of fetid

milk shall we spoil anew!' John Brown's 

body lies a moulderin' too.