John Kaprielian

WAKE ME WHEN WE GET TO THE CIVIL WAR

We're heading backward in time
it seems, undoing all
our years of progress
forcing the hands of the clock
back against their will
gears grinding time twisting
laws unwriting before
disbelieving eyes
(it makes sense that my
digestive system wants
to operate in reverse)

Nails scratch at bare ground
desperately seeking a handhold
to stop our plunge into
the past but we keep
losing our grip
as counter-clock demons
latch onto our legs

“it was a better time!
Simpler! Easier!”
they chant but
it was only simpler
and easier for them,
lording over anyone they
chose to “other”
rigging the game
so they always won.

“Get rid of it all” they say:
Trans rights Gay rights
Disabled rights Civil rights
Voting rights Women’s rights!
The only important thing is
straight white male rights!

Ironically they too
have become a minority
and someday soon
I hope they will get
what they deserve

what everyone deserves

equal rights and equal treatment
under the law.


John's YouTube video reading of "Wake me when we get to the Civil War"


John confesses: "My inspiration for this poem, with all the chaos that is going on, was simply the idealistic notion that our country was founded on the idea that no one is above the law, and that all (ultimately) citizens have the same rights and deserve equal treatment under the law."

Photographer, photo editor, and now a digital asset management librarian, JOHN KAPRIELIAN has been writing poetry for nearly four decades. He brings his keen eye for natural history and a progressive point of view to many of his poems. He studied creative writing at Cornell with the poet A.R. Ammons while getting his undergraduate degree, and he has a Masters degree in Information and Library Scince from the University at Buffalo. He has been published in Minute Magazine, The Blue Nib, Young Ravens Literary Review, Poetry Quarterly, What Rough Beast, and many other journals, and has a poetry collection available through Amazon.