Dear Stephen Paddock,
You gambler, you bigtime high roller,
our current record-setting death toller.
Meting out murder without motivation
from a smoke-filled 32nd floor room.
Who am I compared to you?
Nothing here to shoot off but my mouth,
using words that are not nearly as swift.
My verse attack incapable of impacting
human flesh in an instant. No sustained
bursts that make people scream, bleed,
go to the ground beneath neon dreams.
As they heave your corpse into the black
bag, as we inventory your stockpile
of cunning steel that spews brass casings,
leaden death, what will I say? That the day
after Smith and Wesson was up 3%?
That Winchester hit an all-time market high?
Someone building wealth out of more
American fear, spattered blood, shattered bones.
Stephen, you didn’t hang around to hear
what it’s like when poetry confesses
it’s no match for hardcore times, but I’ll do it any-
way, launch a futile fusillade of syllables,
a single trigger squeeze of slow-moving trochaic
reaction, firing off blanks like all the other times
I’ve watched men, women, and God, yes,
even the children tumble down.
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Please find a way to stop it
Read More:
Gun stocks up after Las Vegas shooting [CNN]
Las Vegas shooting motive eludes investigators as new details emerge about gunman Stephen Paddock [The Washington Post]
Albert Haley lives in Abilene, Texas, which is populated with scrawny, perpetually surviving mesquite trees. He is a past winner of the Rattle Poetry Prize.
Photo by Christopher Burns.
