"Every normal man," wrote H. L. Mencken, "must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." Given that his subject was modern poetry, he can be forgiven the impulse. But we might politely decline to join him. There are few occasions on which the raising of a black flag has been an overture to something pretty, and a great many on which it has augured something ill. Black flags are harbingers of chaos.
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