When I found out President-elect Trump did not have a poet laureate for his inauguration today, I thought it would be nice to write a poem for him. I really wanted to capture the true Trump creative spirit, so I copied lines from the first five inauguration poems and put them together into one poem. I hope you enjoy!
“Things I’ve Said Before, And Will Say Again.”
by Ryan Mentock (with help from some real poets)
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
All of us as vital as the one light we move through
To keep on going where we meant to go.
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
But seek no haven in my shadow,
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
Believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become
Something we were withholding made us weak
The “I have a dream” we keep dreaming
Cannot become one people falling apart.
Cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
Until we found out that it was ourselves
Facedown in ignorance.
All about us is noise.
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
I know there’s something better down the road.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
Such as she was, such as she would become.
Any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
What if the mightiest word is love?
KEY:
Black Text – “Praise Song for the Day” by Elizabeth Alexander
Green Text – “On the Pulse of Morning, by Maya Angelou
Purple Text – “One Today” by Richard Blanco
Blue Text – “Of History and Hope” by Miller Williams
Red Text – “The Gift Outright” by Robert Frost
One thing that I noticed while reading these poems was that “Of History and Hope” by Miller Williams is incredible and everyone should read it twice. Thanks for reading!
