day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO

Pepper Spray Blues

We raised our voices
within our angry
weather-beaten
tent city tribes
only to be sprayed
with government
approved
cowardly wordless
toxins
by uniformed
human centipedes

Eyes watering
faces reddened
with surprise
and still anger
the urban
rent-a-soldiers
think we’re clowns
the Brooks Brothers
douche bags
write us all off
but we’ll melt
them down
with the
million angry suns
in our gazes
they’ll go back
with their
limp dicks
between
their legs
cursing the
day they
sprayed us
as though
we were
bugs and
not a fascist-

crushing
army.

--Kevin Ridgeway

Originally Appeared in Unlikely Stories IV