What Rough Beast | Poem for April 14, 2017

Micah Zevin
(Madness!) #3

The machines are no longer working or workers.
The automatic doors open slowly
or not at all.
We are busting and being busted for the little
piece of mind we have or once had
on the days we had a bounce in our steps and
had a bounce in our steps and had a full belly.
We can not endure surprise raids for
whatever legal illegal non-empathetic reason
whether in the middle of the work day
or during the cover of night.
The machines are no longer working or workers
but digital outliers to extinction and
incarceration and decimation.
The automatic doors open or do not
and they are tacky and golden
surrounded by cherubs spitting up coins
onto demons, and then there is the
mysterious trail of blood that leads to the
CEO’s office and Human Resources
and stops at the window at the very top floor
of the skyscraper, where a rope and a pulley
have been left dangling—

 

Micah Zevin is a librarian poet living in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y. with his wife, a playwright. He works for the Queens Library in Queens, N.Y. He has recently published articles and poems at the Best American Poetry Blog, Headlock Press, The Otter, Newtown Literary Journal and Blog, Poetry and Politics, Reality Beach, Jokes Review, POST(blank), the American Journal of Poetry and The Tower Journal. He created/curates an open mic/poetry prompt workshop called The Risk of Discovery Reading Series now at Blue Cups in Woodside, Queens, N.Y. every 3rd Tuesday of the month. He holds an MFA in Poetry from The New School. His website is micahzevin.weebly.com.

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