We have killed magnificent people
and mounted their heads on walls.
We have extinguished entire species
and dropped monster bombs on enemies.
We have kept the serfs under control,
but they are restless and grumbling.
We have drugged and raped our planet.
We have made icons of warriors
and martyrs of men of peace.
These stains are the prison tattoos
of our body politic, the most dangerous
gang in the world.
Don’t make fun of the boy with a gun.
He hangs about the bazaar every day,
rescuing abused American Girl dolls,
that he takes home for target practice.
Sometimes he whispers secret verses
into their cold hard ears.
At school he is afforded a respectful distance.
He once wrote an essay about painkillers.
He’s not allowed in gym because of loafers.
In his dreams he’s always riding horses.
Even now he sleeps, at peace,
beneath a Snoopy quilt.
There’s a portal in the midway
that’s leaking secret gasses.
Extinct birds in the center lane
are taking language classes.
While coronets are exorcised
and passed out to the masses,
the list of devastations
can be read with x-ray glasses.
There’s a pedal in the dance hall
that controls the singer’s motions,
a buzz about the school of doubt
that drones across the oceans.
A subtle breeze that aims to please
is packaged into potions.
But rediscovered photographs
preclude all escape notions.
A grid of was/saw.
A map of state/etats.
A circle of gas/sag.
The world is mad/dam.
No fox in the hole. Ecological hunting
has trimmed the fur from this vale.
Vague bones kicked up by marchers
are collected by the children as toys.
Manufactured sound has disappeared.
Question marks of smoke
punctuate the sullen distance.
Food is whatever is in the mouth.
The hard times forecast rumble
in the belly of a beast unleashed
by dire misunderstanding.
Somewhere there is an oasis
of healing and imagination.
But right now it’s just carcasses and sand.