What Rough Beast | Poem for October 28, 2017

Zachary Taylor Knox
(irregular heartbeat)

“he’s a white male,” paperboy poets
haled as they sold the movie right
sympathy of their minority for a steal
they had the right to protest from first
through twelfth street because of the
permission slip their parents signed for
them last week, they were allowed

by the police to beat the old man
with sticks and lil slugger baseball bats
because the mayor said they were of
the middle class oppressed variety
they felt they were badasses for fighting
unarmed fascists, best of all they stayed in
fashion dressed in mussolini black shirts and

masks they wore to ignore the white faces
beneath because what if they were just
another instrument of peace that marched
to redeem freedom to lease a piece of the
gated security that bought them depression
and disease, it was their voice they silenced
by choice because they were educated and

said they would speak for the dumb
and the weak

 

Zachary Taylor Knox’s poems have appeared in Ealain and Penny Ante Feud. He lives in Fort Madison, Iowa.

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