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.
