By R. A. Christmas

Thank God—because my sweet grandpa admired

Senator Bob Taft, disliked FDR, and was all for

“shipping the Negroes back to Africa,”

and my sour grandpa would back me into a corner

of his warehouse, and tell me I didn’t know how

to work, and why he hated the Teamsters.

And thank God (again) my folks unknowingly

let me sleep-over at my best friend’s house, whose

parents were “pinko-commie-sympathizers”

who took us swimming (naked) in the Pauling’s

pool, with the ladies cracking up when my friend

fell asleep in the sun and sprang a hard-on,

where I came to love Weavers and Paul Robeson

records, and saw his mom dance in their kitchen

when “Misha” made bail for the Hollywood Ten,

where I learned (in ‘48) that Nixon was a tricky

dick, and us boys sang “This Land is Your Land”

to the Tubman Society (a front)—all of which

in a wacked-out way prepared me to later accept

and follow the greatest 19th century socialist

of them all, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith,

who ran for President, promised to end slavery,

and infamously said, “I intend to lay a foundation

that will revolutionize the whole world.” Amen.