Protest Song | Poem by Alvin Knox

Protest Song

There’s something wrong here. Why
are so many people hiding behind their banners and signs?
Why, in their swirling colors, has the red of passion
become the red of danger, the orange become fire?
Even the yellow and green are confused with black.
And the sky all black, all black upon a gray block
swept with shadows. Something is wrong
here: the jaundiced arms, the hollow eyes, the mouths
open wide in screamed profanities that swallow
the lips where whispers and kisses have died.