Who Poisoned the Well

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I have struggled for months
to understand why the election
of Donald Trump has spoiled
the taste of village water.

Unlike any other election I can recall--
and I recall small crackly radios
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt; ever since--
the election of Donald Trump
has not just been about who won,
but who made it possible for him to win.

Last night, I heard Charles Blow--
a most remarkable man--say this:

"This is not normal,
and this is not right . . . ,
but you chose him.
You chose him."

My friends, some of my friends, chose him.
They chose him, who is not normal,
who is not right, but they chose him.

And, for the life of me,
I have not been able to avoid knowing
that it is not just about Donald Trump:
it is about them.

They chose what everyone could see
was not normal, and not right.
Donald Trump charged into the field
of ordinary competent and incompetent
Republican contenders, like a Pamplona bull,
goring, trampling, taunting, snorting;
not just a bull in a bull run through town,
but a mad bull bent on destroying something,
anything, everything, for his own ego.

And that done,
he turned to see what he had done,
and said again his scorn
for. . . . For everyone.

And people chose him.

We are watching what we chose,
in a shameful display of incompetence,
a boastful display of arrogance, ignorance,
sexism, racism, and ego,
who thinks to be President is a regency,
with gold-leaf glitter and a spawn of genes
dribbling off into arrogant ignorance.

We have what we chose.
Nobody did it for us.
There is no one to blame
who poisoned the well.
And it is so plain
that this is not normal,
this is not right.

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