This poem is a sonnet with 3 quatrains (lines of 4) and a couplet (set of lines), so in order to help your comprehension, you want to divide the stanzas by the structure.

Themes in poetry show up in the last lines or last stanza. A theme is a universal statement about what the author believes.

If we consider that poems are either a MEMORY or an EMOTION we can use word choice to figure out the theme. This poem is about emotion, particularly about not giving in to an enemy.

So universal theme would be...

symbolism - McKay calls his enemies "monsters", but he doesn't seem to be fighting fictional beasts in the poem, so not literal monsters.

Poetry 101:

Step 1 - Read this poem. Consider this just your first run through. Take notice of punctation (periods, comma, etc.). That's where you stop when reading a poem.

Step 2 - Read the poem again - But now you want to think in Costa's Level 2. So, notice rhetorical devices and what they are doing in the text. Divide your stanzas so you can chunk information and analyze in pieces.

Step 3 - Find the theme. Theme is a universal statement that tells us how the author feels about a topic. This is not a subject - like the beach - but what does the beach, or the setting, mean to the author. Themes are found in the last lines or the last stanza of a poem.

The world continues to change, warp, consume, ebb, and flow around us - good and bad directions.

So if we write a universal theme...

It's easy to ignore the word "but"; however, this is a conjunction that tells you the author is about to flip everything they've been saying.

It's a tiny word with a major impact. So this is a good place to make a division in a poem. To see what was being established, and how the author now wants to change it.

First things to be addressed is ways to be killed by law