To Every Innocent Murderer:

When the tempest conjures, let there be just a moment

where you can reflect as a movietime montage, compiled-fast

into those blinking moments before you see yourself styled

as some noveau cowboy. It is beautiful, that image tantamount

to authority and strength and dignity and selflessness

in the face of danger. Yes, hold that close to your restless

heart longing for modern adventure in an age of miracles past

due and overtime heavy on your hands, weighing your waist

like a Kel-Tec PF-9 loaded with the burdens of ennui

and supposed justice in a world that is wholesale.

In a whorl of wails, an eruption you might never anticipate,

let there be a moment, just a moment, where you detail

your children to be, your parents, yourself undissipated

as a youth thinking no further than your next snack,

as a tooth for those sweet things you have always loved:

all the promotions, the winning games, a slap on the back

in a world that is whole-set like bowling pins cloved

for the same cliches that drain us. Let there be just

in a moment that you can never take back, a moment that

just is lost to all of us, to you, to a world of entropy

surrendering to the slings, arrows of time and misfortune.