April Poem by Richard Jarboe

Back then, it was the steam locomotive chuggin' down the track,
Now, it's the Bullet Train.
Back then, it was ALL organic,
Now, it's the computer brain.

Back then, dust and mud
Was the condition of the street,
Now, the road is asphalt,
A freeway elite.

April 1865 was unlike any other,
From the Fall of Richmond, to the death of our father,
Foul business in a house of destruction, vanity,
Showbiz and insanity.

Back then, it was hard to sentence a woman to death,
Now, it's no big deal.
A cruel and crushing fate,
Is just part of the wheel.

Back then, they had a Depot of Mourning Goods,
With so many knick knacks to choose,
Like an inch of rope for fifty cents,
Cut from a hangman's noose.

Little Lincolns everywhere,
Maybe a bloody pillow for sale,
Maybe even a lock of his hair,
All profit from a lock of despair.

Back then, life was cheap,
It seems that hasn't changed,
With no particle of a thinking mind,
Killing is about the same.

Cold eyes on a spring day,
Watched the train haul Lincoln away,
We were trying to celebrate the end of the war,
But not anymore.


Back then, if the verdict was betrayal,
You didn't last very long in jail,
One day after their verdict, four would hang,
Twisting in the wind, as bells rang.

Herold, Powell, Atzerodt, Surratt,
All would die after Booth was shot,
Back then, we didn't pose,
We were crazy; everybody knows.

Back then, with recent bloody deeds done,
April held the promise of good things to come,
Lilac and the sweet fragrance of spring,
And now? April is still April; bells still ring.