Another Option














The college convened
Their duty before them
Validate a monarch
Or preserve
The republic
He would destroy.


Never before
Such a clear choice.
Never before
Such dire consequences
Not either or
But none of the above.

Nobody spoke
They milled around
Like cattle in a stock yard.
Sheep being led
To slaughter
Through a gate of their choosing.

Peter Brown
Someone yelled
Who is he
Another replied.
Me, one of the milling sheep replied
I am Peter Brown.

Who are you?
Several asked in one voice.
Nobody, Peter Brown answered
Red or Blue
The condemned
Wanted to know.

Brown, Peter answered.
Silence reigned
Even the milling ceased
All in favor
A voice in their midst asked
All said aye.

And that is how
We came to live
In this White house
On a green lawn
Peter Brown said
To the yellow press.

Jacqui Binford-Bell
July 2016

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysJuly 28, 2016 at 1:50 PM

    Brilliant. Shared on Facebook. Did you take the picture too?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JBinford-BellJuly 28, 2016 at 2:30 PM

    The photograph is not mine. I went through Google images looking for a tightly packed herd or flock.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JBinford-BellJuly 28, 2016 at 2:31 PM

    The photograph is not mine. I went through Google images looking for a tightly packed herd or flock.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Blog of BeeJuly 29, 2016 at 11:29 AM

    I am going to love this series!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more