MUSSOLINI

BY

BILLYE OKERA

What Mrs. Mussolini thought of Mr. Mussolini

The tales she tell her friends

Little limp slicker in the bed

Dreaming blood-red holocaust and nightmare

And family nights full of festive frivolity

As another Jewish gladiator to the lions.

Crime and Misdemeanors those years of shame

Crimes and weapons of mass destruction:

Hitler, Himler, Stalin, Auschwitz, Poland -

  Oven-roasted people

Full of pleading and needing Moses

To RISE from sleep/weeping with the fathers.

Seems just after he touched her

With his death-hands

Just after he kissed her-

His lips dripping blood

His body having raped and pillaged

 And poisoned and experimented,

Tortured and enslaved.

Well Mrs. M says to Mr. M

She failing to get a rise

And I am told, with great worship in her eyes…

"You the man, baby, Oh, YOU, YOU THE MAN"!