The darkest strains of pallid privilege
are rarely known by others for their ego<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or evil now. The meeker, plainer strains,
no longer brandishing these two e-words,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
seek to acquire a sleekness of their own.
But once upon a time, from their ranks grew<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the best, who\u2019d not be silenced but, when pressed,
spoke out again such ills as slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Bless\u00e8d” were they “in spirit.” But no more.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By light, the Dark Folk “get away with murder”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and do not look in mirrors. But by night,
they look\u2014and to appear attractive they<\/p>\n\n\n\n
use only artificial wicks which light
them only from the side. With fine makeup<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and strip-lighting’s new Frosty-Focus bulbs,
the race of evil egos, the Dark Folk,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
each and every evening, and with ease,
seem enviable, expressly because<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They look<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pretty<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Damned<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The darkest strains of pallid privilegeare rarely known by others for their ego or evil now. The meeker, plainer strains,no longer brandishing these two e-words, seek to acquire a sleekness of their own.But once upon a time, from their ranks grew the best, who\u2019d not be silenced but, when pressed,spoke out again such ills as … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackworksmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
James B. Nicola is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense. His decades of working in the theater culminated in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award. Born right before Halloween, he is used to black birthday balloons (just for the “hell” of it, so to speak).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"