The past comes back to haunt us…

I remember many things.

I remember years ago, when threats to Social Security were tested as trial balloons, my friend and fellow teacher who was at that time the President of our teachers’ credit union, growled louder than I’d ever heard him, “They’d better keep their damn hands off my Social Security!” He was ready for a fight.

I remember Ronald Reagan.

He was a B actor who rose in the political ranks from Governor to President.

As Governor of California, he did as much harm as he could. He attacked, weakened, and tried to dismantle the University of California, the greatest University network in the world.

He cut government costs by emptying the hospitals. The patients were put in ambulances and dumped on the streets, wearing only hospital gowns.

Then he became President. He used his Hollywood acting skills to issue under-rehearsed proclamations. I remember that famous challenge, like an astronaut setting foot on the moon, the semi-immortal line that needed a re-take, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear / Down / That / Wall!”

We all remember his famous line, “Government IS the problem,” clearly announcing that he didn’t understand what democratic government is.

He meddled in war. Photo ops at the White House showed him bending to kiss the heads of visiting children he would later send to their deaths.

Later, it was painful to see a President in decline, as Nancy, holding his hand, whispered the words to him, “We’re doing the best we can,” so he could answer a reporter’s question and say, “We’re doing the best we can.”

I wrote a poem about Reagan and sent it to The New Yorker. The editor sent a note back saying why he rejected it. “It’s too ad hominem.”

Of course it is! That’s the point!

		He bends his face
		to the faces of children
		opens his mouth to kiss or to speak
		strikes with his teeth
		bites through their innocence
		tears out their eyes
		and spills out the skull
		nuzzles the blood
		and dyes his hair red

		That man rules the nation
		plies the buttons of power
		severs through lives
		with his trembling claws