Olympic derge

(Inspired by Key and subsequent generations of lyrical white supremacists)

O say can you see
By dawn’s early light
What so viciously wrought
From the tortured
And screaming
O’r the ramparts
We stared
Death whom escape
dared
Gave proof
Through the night
That blood was still
Streaming
Those mean scars
And fierce lashes
Long
May
They save
A republic for whites
Where all others
Stay slaves.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..