by Robert Knox
In a year in which only personal realities
are consulted by humans,
in which only over-sized creatures are heard
and they merely grunt
In a year in which the hogs that grunt
are only human,
in which it can be seen that
their blinkered eyes are rightly suspicious
and monitor the intrusive attentions
of folks with cameras,
who are neither journalists nor tourists,
but uniformed executioners bearing witness on themselves
In a year in which the words of the truly reproachable
bear witness against themselves,
in which the words of the prophets
are everywhere and too numerous to recall
amidst the blinding lights of the next enormity,
too large for even the wiser among us to believe,
or the most gullible
In which even the loudest of unsanctioned mouths
fall silent,
for there is simply too much to say
and no lack of overpaid oath-breakers
clamoring to bear witness against themselves.
Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.
