Nazi Salute?
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He was only waving to someone he knew,
a friend in the crowd, calling out loud to him.
No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He was stretching, because his arm was sore
from shaking the hands of adoring fans.
Where’s the harm in stretching your arm?
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He’d been out celebrating in spite of the rain.
His clothes were crumpled and slightly stained
—he was only adjusting the sleeve of his suit.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He was thanking the crowd for their wild applause.
How could he not, when they clearly adored him
—acclaim, that it would have been rude to ignore.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He began the movement by clutching his chest
as if in in danger of cardiac arrest.
The poor man gets so much abuse from the left.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
My heart goes out to you all, he said
while clenching his jaw and raising his head
to follow his arm, accidentally askew.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute,
but a gesture of love for humankind
—at least for those who were blind enough
to follow the Donald like King Canute.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute.
It looked like a benediction,
a pastor gently blessing his flock,
and no predilection for harsh fascist diction
at all. Not a Nazi salute.
He’s a genius, a prophet, a father of twelve.
He believes each child will be just like himself,
a cloned master race, both cute and acute.
No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
The future of civilisation’s assured!
The crowd roared approval, calling for more.
The future’s assured, he said, thanks to you.
No it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
If you want to survive in the world he’s designing,
you’ll need to stop trusting your eyes,
update your naïve view of what makes things true.
You know it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German poet living on the East Anglia coast, U.K. His poetry has been widely published in magazines and anthologies in Europe and the U.S.—most recently in the Fish Prize Anthology 2024, where his poem “Small White Sphere” was selected as one of ten finalists by American poet Billy Collins. He has won the George Crabbe Poetry Prize in the U.K. and last year was one of Suffolk Poetry Society’s showcase poets at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.
