Uncle Tom

How do you kill a legacy?

You pervert it.
You distort it.

Somehow we live in a world
Where Gone with the Wind
Is unkillable.

Out of everything 
That needs to die
This one endures.

I can’t even pretend 
To understand that.

And somehow 
A far better book
Is reduced
To a pejorative,
A book that literally 
Changed the world
Is now condemned
As callumny.

That’s the kind of power
The house of Geisel
Unwittingly strolled into,
Convinced it was doing
Something easy and right.

Except in a world such as this,
Few enough things 
Are easy and right,
And usually when they are
You can bet 
There’s a crazy amount
Of opposition 
Convinced of moral rectitude 
And armed
Only with silly insults,
Trolls under a bridge
With keyboards
Standing in the way.

Except, well,
The trolls
Are under
A bridge,
And you can
Take the bridge
Right over their head.

And reclaim society.

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