Ugh

I've been having a rough time completing things lately, and I've spent so much time grinding away at this poem. It still needs work, but I think I'm going to just move on and maybe come back to it when I figure it out.

Protest Song ‘08/Old Noise


We are the little
squeaking ghosts
with cardboard mantras
and bruised pamphlets.

Our dissent
blooms in the pinched
ignition of paper
matches, deliberate

and bright, as if
they could speak
to slow us down.
Amateurs—yes,

we squeak, fists
in the air, and ruffle
the fuzz, whose parade
of peekaboo lights

and bullhorns add
only static. We invoke
the city’s whisper—
the unrequited pillow-

talk of blind justice.
We stir the old noise;
the murmuring underbelly;
the hand-me-down appetite

quieted by a night of cee-lo
and booze. Alone, we find
the slow vigor in our list of demands
that we don’t expect to be met.