JEFF PEARLMAN

JEFF PEARLMAN

My only poem

kkkorthodox-jews-2

When I was a senior at Mahopac High School in 1990, my English teacher, a woman named Carol Baral, had the entire class write a poem for an anthology. I handed mine in, and the school threatened not to use it. They eventually did, but only after I convinced them that, as a Jew, it’d be sorta hard for me to also be a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Anyhow, here it is. The theme was reincarnation …

KKK/By Jeff  Pearlman

In my last life.

I was in the KKK.

Patronizing minorities.

Spreading evil ways.

With my blood-drenched sheet.

And burning cross.

I was a human devil at large.

A soul who was lost.

But of all the things.

Who could have knew?

I started in the KKK.

And ended up a Jew.