Poem: Record Straight

Saint Patrick was not Irish-born,

But Romano-British, taken, torn

Carried to Éire as a slave,

Returned to claim the faith he gave.

He chased no snakes from Irish sand,

But drove the Druids from the land

He took the wells and ancient fire

To build the church and reaching spire

The Celtic symbols bent and broke

Beneath the weight of Roman yoke.

Columbus was no “Italian” claim

In the modern nation-state's own name

Genoa birthed him, long before

Italy stood as one in law.

He never touched North America’s strand,

But Caribbean waters and island sand

Where Taino souls were bought and sold,

And worked to death for Spanish gold

A governor of whip and chain,

Who left a trail of blood and pain.

Before his sails cut western foam,

Norse ships had reached Vinland’s loam

Centuries prior, brief and small,

Yet proof the tale was not the first call.

They traded steel for furs and hides,

With Skræling kin, they fought and died

A violent spark in northern cold,

Long before the "New World" mold.

No continent was “found” that year.

Nations thrived already here.

Empires rose, and trade winds ran

Long before a European plan.

But maps were drawn to claim the prize,

To mask the theft in legal lies

A "Doctrine of Discovery" tool,

To justify a foreign rule.

Cleopatra, Nile’s last throne,

Was Macedonian, Greek by bone

From Ptolemy’s line, Alexander’s thread,

Sibling unions where royals wed.

Egypt she ruled, its language knew,

Yet her dynasty was not native through.

She used her charms as shields of state,

While brothers died to seal her fate

A ruthless queen in silk and gold,

Whose family tree was dark and old.

The founders warned of faction’s rise

Of parties split by zeal and prize.

Yet factions formed, as power does,

In human hands, because we’re us.

They spoke of "Life" and "Liberty,"

While holding men in slavery

The ink was fresh on Freedom’s page,

While thousands stayed within the cage.

The Civil War’s contested right

Was slavery’s preservation fight;

Secession papers made it plain

Bondage bound to wealth and gain.

They fought for soil and southern pride,

With human property inside

The "Lost Cause" myth was later spun,

To hide the truth of what was done.

Poe was not Black, as rumors say;

His poems bear his hand’s own way.

Emily Dickinson wrote unseen,

Nearly eighteen hundred poems between

Her Amherst walls and private air;

Most were printed and altered there.

They smoothed her rhymes and cut her dash,

To fit the Victorian social fashion.

Charles Dickens filled the serial page

With drafts that mark his working age;

History holds no hidden hand

The record stands where papers stand.

He walked the slums and wrote the plight,

Yet left his wife in bitter spite

A public man of "Christmas Cheer,"

Whose private life was cold and drear.

So let the banners wave if they must,

But test each claim against the dust.

For myth grows loud where facts grow thin

And truth requires discipline.

A modern name joins history’s page,

To mark a dark and fractured age.

Trump stands where cruelest leaders trod,

With an iron ego, golden god.

Besides the ghosts of Italy’s son,

And Hitler’s Reich, the damage done.

The worst of leaders, history’s stain,

Where power sought its private gain.

©2026 By Mary Robbins