Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "She fears his mob more than the man"

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and Klansmen clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Credit Edu Bayer for The New York Times

Rebel Girl has been on a roll with her poetry lately.  It is, she quips, an economical and constructive mid-life crisis.  She recommends it.  If you're interested, seats are still available in creative writing classes.  Sign up!  Everyone has a story. Or a poem.

Meanwhile, here is one of Rebel Girl's latest, which appeared online on January 4th, 2018, as part of  "What Rough Beast," Indolent Books online project which seeks to publish a  "poem a day by a different poet exploring and responding to our nation’s political reality."

She Fears: A Villanelle

She fears his mob more than the man
the flag not hers when in their hands
when he is gone, they still will stand

conspiracy converts the land
an anthem stung into command
she fears that mob more than their man

she reads their signs: demand demand
bright torches, chants, night-roaming klans
when he is gone, they will still stand

they have been waiting, like the sands
for a late tide that drowns the land
she fears this mob more than the man

recalling plans of other clans
when candles gently lit the land
When he is gone, still will they stand?

Interrogate the past they brand!
Barricade our hearts, our held hands!
She fears his mob more than their man.
When he is gone, will we still stand?

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To read it online and read other poems from the project, click here.

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Dolores O’Riordan (1971-2018)