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Rebuttal photo

 

Against the grinding fever of suppressed 
song, against a muzzle’s searing, sound 
is a muscle.                 The body’s rebuttal, 

a kind of clamoring                             
held to seethe. Against siren-women, against 

cliché’s cacophony, we keep spinning, spooling
counterpoint, contrapuntal, the contraband
of roots, radical, fractal, optional, historical—

Drink this. Sing this: our tongues will not be bridled
as though miniature ponies put out to pasture.                    
Nor will our tales be jeered as old-wives’ blather.

Against hush-hush, tsk-tsk, we stream melodies       
through barbwire even when vexed, breathless 
as popped balloons.                  Even then

our sound surges through 
hex                                    into galloping hymn. 

 

 

image: Christoffer Engström


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