What Rough Beast | 09 09 20 | Marjorie Moorhead

Marjorie Moorhead
Shout
the Summer of 2020

Our pandemic history
flows from manic making
of banana breads, and no t.p.,
to where mass protest is urgent necessity.
A black man died under blue clad weight;
neck held down, casually,
by the racist knee of a bully cop
leaning into white supremacy,
brutalizing with impunity,
thinking his perceived racial superiority
grants him immunity;
permits him to act as vigilante.

Unrest and protest follows. Tsunami
amassing; a wave led by the outraged
brave building a roar to implement change,
correct wrongs; imagine more.
Imagine better and bring it about;
that is what people in the streets are calling for.
That is why we all must shout.

—Submitted on 08/31/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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