What Rough Beast | Poem for August 8, 2018

Richard Morrison
Texas

from the shivering possum
to the cowering hawk

the distraught
mother going off on the CNN reporter

the family disappeared
in their van as it’s swept up

and sinks in the dark rising
water there is too much

pain and strife and suffering
for all this innocence

lost unfathomable
mediated terror explodes

forsaken plants bloom
on the chemical horizon

 

The Poet Writes: This poem, written in response to Hurricane Harvey (but before Maria hit Puerto Rico later in the season), seems to resonate in terms of the larger issues of climate change, environmental deregulation, and the humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border.

 

Richard Morrison’s poems have appeared  in Provincetown Arts and Christopher Street, among other publications. He holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University (1991) and currently serves as editorial director for Fordham University Press.

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