NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST

a Civil War lyric in terza rima

By satnrose

 

the horseman Nathan Bedford Forrest was

a natural genius born to men command

enlisted as a private in the Cause

 

among the first of Rebs to make a stand

a slaver who lost all his wealth and burned

and founder of the secret Ku Klux Klan

 

uneducated gifted but unlearned

he quickly rose received a general’s rank

rode circles round the Union as they turned

 

the high command did not know who to thank

and when they did they knew it much too late

twas better to be dead than be a Yank

 

but Wizard of the Saddle met his fate

unable to unlock the box of hate

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satnrose is a well-known antiquarian bookseller, and formerly a not-so-secret messenger in the innermost depths of Capitol Hill and K Street. He has been published in a number of literary magazines, but since his reincarnation as 'satnrose' last year, he has been published in Evergreen Review, Iconoclast, Danse Macabre, Counterexample Poetics, wtf.pwm, Oysters & Chocolate, Apparatus, Gloom Cupboard, Escape into Life, Mad Swirl, Metazen, The November 3 rd Club, Stray Branch, The Citron Review, Mastodon Dentist, Full of Crow, Nefarious Ballerina, Counterpunch, deadpaper, theviewfromhere, Maverick, Calliope Nerve, and Battered Suitcase.