polemical poetry to prickle the politics of "permanent austerity"
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Muzak for Indigents
at the bus stop
at the health center
at the payday loans
Poverty is their angel
and Want is her song,
a low white thrum
of persistent complaint,
a birth fever
that never abates.
at other times Poverty
is a mezzo-soprano
in a coloratura
of converging sirens
—police, fire, ambulance—
spiccato
on the nerves,
a turbine driving
the adrenaline gland.
R. A. Allen's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Quarterly, Night Train, The William & Mary Review, RHINO, Gargoyle, Euphony, and elsewhere. He has one Pushcart nomination. He lives in Memphis for the humidity. More at