Chris Butler

Just as the founding fathers intended,
we should all own a weapon
for home defense.

One moonless evening,
four ruffians break into my house.
As I snatch my powdered wig,
and load my Kentucky long rifle
with an iron ball stuffed with
granules of gun powder,

I blow a hole through the first man.
He lays dead where he once stood.
Drawing my dragoon pistol
on the second man,
the bullet misses him entirely because

of it’s smootbore barrel
and the wayward
round strikes the neighbor’s
guard dog barking in his yard
into dead silence.

I must then rest my laurels
upon my cannon,
mounted at the top of the stairs,
fully loaded with grape shot.
The short fuse is sparked.
As the bunches of iron balls

shred two of the men in the blast,
along with the front door and foyer,
the booming sound and soaring shrapnel
alarms each horse into bucking
every carriage on the block.

With fixed bayonet from my
unloaded musket, I charge the last
terrified rapscallion.
I penetrate the soft underbelly
of the trespasser

with the triangular blade,
leaving him bleeding out
on the floor, waiting for the help
of sworn militia officers of the law
and the town’s one and only
doctor to arrive,

all helpless to save his life
since his trilateral wound
can never be stitched together.

Just as the founding fathers intended.

Twenty four hours in bed, though no rest in the imprints of pillowed heads,
form festering sores and crumbling iron deficiencies,

only two hours of dreams at a time when the snooze is never slapped during the dark nightmares,
when all the snapped brain synapses never want to rest,

but know they’ll be all done until there’s just one night only left for sleep.

This isn’t rocket surgery,

just ignite the lighters,
then exhale the
rush of the thrust.

An orangutan
drunk off of
orange tang,

is then spoon-fed
doses of LSD-25
from Harvard professors
passing government grass.

The space monkey coughs
on the highest of highs,
as everything rushes
to the back of his head,

a new frontier of euphoria
from autoerotic asphyxiation
doping syncopal episodes,
feeling floating faintness
in a fractured orbital
spin around the globe,

then comes crashing down
hard below the earth’s dirt.

The sheep
feel a false
sense of security
under the sheepdog’s
vigilant eyes
after the black sheep,
with their fearsome
wool of darkness
are outcaste to
the outskirts,
until a few
white wools
lose their taste
for grazing
and radicalize,
then cannibalize
their own kind,
then overthrow
their watchful
protector down
it’s hill,
as a pack
of gluttonous wolves
lurks along the tree line,
impatiently awaiting
their sporting feast.

And the goats
watch the slaughter
helplessly from a
higher elevation.