TED KACZYNSKI'S CABIN
As my country goes collectively more mad
every day, I keep thinking that Ted had the right
idea with that cabin; get away from everyone,
live off the grid, quietly, in the wilderness
with only that which is required for life,
that which gives one pleasure and sustenance,
then see to it that no one can get to you.
The bombings are where he went wrong.
He could have continued living securely
in his cabin if he hadn’t started killing people,
if he’d been able to settle for writing about
the rising evils of technology and what he
thought needed to be done about them. But
writing it all down was not enough for him.
Ted's dead now, suicide in a prison hospital,
his cabin no longer tucked away, decomposing
in Montana. The FBI has carefully dismantled it,
like London Bridge, then reassembled it at their
headquarters in Washington, DC; a trophy,
a stuffed marlin, a mounted stag’s head, antlers
to hold hats and coats, Mardi Gras beads.
ELEGY FOR LAMB CHOP
How perverse of Shari Lewis to
call her cute little hand puppet,
her alter ego, Lamb Chop.
Was it some kind of sneaky
memento mori for us
unsuspecting kids? Hinting that
we too may become someone’s
favorite dinner some day?
Did that really fly right past
the parents, who should have
known better, who should have
protected us but probably
thought it simply cute and
didn’t understand Latin anyway?
Or were they just not paying attention?
Why did it stop with Lamb Chop?
Why not a pig puppet named Bacon?
Or a cute cartoon cow called Hamburger?
Let’s teach the kids about real life,
not hand puppets and cartoons but
wars of bloodsucking greed, despots,
corporations christened as persons
by a collaborationist supreme court,
legally sanctioned rape and plunder
endorsed by your favorite religion.
Why not teach them that?
The fist clenched within the sock puppet.
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