He was a sad sort of man
And we let him exist
On the corner of our consciousness.
ignoring all his nastiness
And jokes calling women broads
And how he wanted to ******
And pinch them and stare
At them when they were naked.
We giggled at his ugliness
And displays of tacky wealth
And how he has so little
Of anything called class.

We called him an ***
And wrote him off in the seventies
As a silly arriviste fool
Who played around in school
And dodged the draft.
He was a joke fore and aft
But we underestimated
The danger of a snake
Slithering in the silence.
It can bite us just because
We were not looking at it.
And it is no help to ignore it.
No matter the excuses we make.
It is still a slithering snake.

We forgot to take into account
That some people like snakes
And take them as pets
Despite all the epithets
Of their neighbors and family.
They do so happily
Because there is something wrong
With people who handle snakes
And they usually shout about Jesus
Which I am sure he would hate.
But no problem, it seems of late
To them, Jesus was a bigot, a hater.
They must have read later
Some Bible we never saw
With a different set of laws
And advice. Really not nice.