Training
By Craig Kirchner
We are born needing food, warmth, direction and love.
No one is born hating, we are trained to hate as
we learn to fear, the dynamics falling like cards
being fanned together, one and the next
and then shuffled, waiting to be cut.
We hate what we fear, fear what we hate,
starting with ourselves, and then spreading over
the rest of our domain into every nook and cranny
like butter on hot toast. We early learn to fear
the hot stove but we don’t hate it.
We hate things, fear stuff, but there’s no narrative,
no repercussions, nothing visceral -
storms don’t hate you back,
but they do keep coming, not to sew fear,
but because the oceans keep heating up.
As we make our way, there are individuals who
affect our lives, that deserve to be feared,
and in some cases hated, for most of us that
will always be part of it, but what of those
that don’t touch us, that we don’t know.
Well, I hate immigrants, blacks, and foreigners
with good reason. That’s the way it is and I’m not
ashamed of it – has no merit as thought or emotion,
no basis in fact. I hate Al Capone, he killed my father –
has reason based on fact, but do you hate Italians?
To hate a group of people because they don’t have papers,
don’t speak English, came across a border,
aren’t a color you like, don’t fuck or love
like you do, because someone told you they’d
take your job, eat your pets, rape your wife,
is a trained ignorance that involves hearing it over
and over, creating a fear, touching that fear.
The caravans are coming, they’re sending the murderers
and pedophiles. They rub your nose in it multiple times
until you are house-trained and vote on command
Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels and has been nominated three times for Pushcart. He was recently published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, Breathe, The Wilderness House and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop, these words help keep him straight.