BUCK SHOT FLAG

for Franz W.
& Tom W.



There's a room

Sitting at a table
In our free society
The accoutrements
Are all very nice
Polished mahogany
A fine table cloth
Clean silverware
Plenty of food
Piled in the center
A 55-inch plasma
Screen on the wall
For viewing pleasure

There's even a record
Player in the corner
With massive speakers
A nice vinyl collection
Sits amid books
Upon the shelves
Along side the loaded
Totemic gun resting
On its jewel case
Depression in velvet
There's also the medicine
Chest down the hall
In the tiled bathroom

Except for the nagging
Excedrin won't solve
Elliot's problems now
He's got a splitting head
Ache and the only cure
Believe him he's tried
Everything to no avail
Is to grab that crown
Gem and split the heads
Of those he thinks
Have persecuted him
So long it's making
Him sick with it

If the revolver was not
In the room frankly
So easily and sacredly
Necessarily by law
Abiding right there
Gleaming in the dark
Whispered by silenced
Bullets for tongues
An overheated and
Repeated insistence
Gradually and mutely
Transubstantiated into
Abject American prayer

Would the troubled
Elliotts of our land
Find it so God damn
Easy then to fatten
This growing meme
Of their manifesto
Signed sealed and
Delivered with fatal
Punctuation marks?
First ask what price
We traded tyranny
For and further the
More we pay for it

Freedom with our
Lives the pressing
Question remains
To count the cost
For those we lost
The double edged
Sword now replaced
By the barrel which
Fires both ways
May no sooner
Be repressed than
The flaming edges
Of our story itself