The Rough Beast Receives an Invitation from America
Come as you are; come
with your fur crushed smooth
as applesauce from a blender. Come
as a 1950s housewife, Maytag-tested
version of yourself. Bleach your blood
of stains of place, of dust. Come like wine
without terroir. All terror of specificity removed--
claws and wings and slouch and sluff and
dandruff shampooed off. Be hateable only
because you’re beautiful. Come with knees unbent,
your flag pin pinned, your beast eyes focused
on the ball. Don’t cheat by asking us what game.
Catch or be caught. Come half-mast as a school flag
in the aftermath. It’s called respect.
Come TSA-approved, pre-checked. All contamination
sealed in one-quart bags. Put your dirty paws
above your head. Be the fears that we expect. Dark
shadows in city streets. Foreclosed windows. Meth.
Roaring lions at the Manhattan, Kansas, safari park.
Come from the desert we made for you.
Come like sand in an hour glass. We decide
when to turn it. We decide how to mount
your head on the ski lodge wall. Don’t come bird-
spiraled, stalking, though that’s how we’ll tell it. How
dangerous. How wild. How vermin, how refugee.
Come without concupiscence or too many
strange syllables. Come with sins we recognize
from Bible school; blur out the rest like breasts:
skin-colored wasps swarming parts we shouldn’t see.
Come as the tower poet couldn’t dream you. As 3D,
as bit-coin, as the VR ride that spins us in its wide
widening gyre. Let us scream but don’t kill us.
Come as Ruff Beast and rap for us. Come
like the unborn with perfect blue passports.
Come worship at our megachurch. Come like
wrapping paper from Amazon. Like a re-run
of Tarzan. Like subwoofer to the loud-
thumping heartland. When we say Rough Beast,
you say America. When we say holes, we mean
assholes and pussies and mouths and prisons, and
round glazed balls of donut: a hole’s sweet
opposite. Come. There’s nothing but center here.
with your fur crushed smooth
as applesauce from a blender. Come
as a 1950s housewife, Maytag-tested
version of yourself. Bleach your blood
of stains of place, of dust. Come like wine
without terroir. All terror of specificity removed--
claws and wings and slouch and sluff and
dandruff shampooed off. Be hateable only
because you’re beautiful. Come with knees unbent,
your flag pin pinned, your beast eyes focused
on the ball. Don’t cheat by asking us what game.
Catch or be caught. Come half-mast as a school flag
in the aftermath. It’s called respect.
Come TSA-approved, pre-checked. All contamination
sealed in one-quart bags. Put your dirty paws
above your head. Be the fears that we expect. Dark
shadows in city streets. Foreclosed windows. Meth.
Roaring lions at the Manhattan, Kansas, safari park.
Come from the desert we made for you.
Come like sand in an hour glass. We decide
when to turn it. We decide how to mount
your head on the ski lodge wall. Don’t come bird-
spiraled, stalking, though that’s how we’ll tell it. How
dangerous. How wild. How vermin, how refugee.
Come without concupiscence or too many
strange syllables. Come with sins we recognize
from Bible school; blur out the rest like breasts:
skin-colored wasps swarming parts we shouldn’t see.
Come as the tower poet couldn’t dream you. As 3D,
as bit-coin, as the VR ride that spins us in its wide
widening gyre. Let us scream but don’t kill us.
Come as Ruff Beast and rap for us. Come
like the unborn with perfect blue passports.
Come worship at our megachurch. Come like
wrapping paper from Amazon. Like a re-run
of Tarzan. Like subwoofer to the loud-
thumping heartland. When we say Rough Beast,
you say America. When we say holes, we mean
assholes and pussies and mouths and prisons, and
round glazed balls of donut: a hole’s sweet
opposite. Come. There’s nothing but center here.
Alexandra Teague is the author of three poetry books, most recently Or What We’ll Call Desire (Persea 2019), as well as co-editor of Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. She is a professor of creative writing at University of Idaho.
I’ve written several poems recently in which I imagine the “rough beast”—the apocalyptic figure at the end of Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming”—in contemporary situations. If The Rough Beast is the manifestation of a society that has, as Yeats predicted, “fall[en] apart,” I also imagine him being scapegoated and treated as monstrous within a society he didn’t choose or create.
I’ve written several poems recently in which I imagine the “rough beast”—the apocalyptic figure at the end of Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming”—in contemporary situations. If The Rough Beast is the manifestation of a society that has, as Yeats predicted, “fall[en] apart,” I also imagine him being scapegoated and treated as monstrous within a society he didn’t choose or create.