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R.A. Allen

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

http://poets.nyq.org/poet/raallen

atos
Poor Doors
Sheriff Stars
spikes

thistles stretch their prickly arms afar

Black Triangle
bedroom tax
Disrupt and Upset
triangle_small
spikes
bedroom tax
Sheriff Stars

thistles stretch their prickly arms afar

Black Triangle
Disrupt and Upset

Militant Thistles

prickling the politics of "permanent austerity"

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