Chris Butler- Three Poems

Chris Butler is an anorexic starving artist. His sixth book in his Poems of Pain series, BUMMER, was recently published by Scars Publications. He is also the co-editor of the literary journal The Beatnik Cowboy.

Is This the Way It Really Has to Be?

A double homicide downtown

with a young black male as the prime suspect.

A white officer of the law takes the life

of a minority he swore to protect and serve.

Oil prices are on the rise. Inflation deflates

the penniless bank accounts. Interest rates

rape the servants’ life savings. Foreclosures

break homes on every street corner. Millions

of children of non-Caucasian complexions

starve and die of diseases cured ages ago.

The president orders the bombing

of a building halfway across the planet,

using a surface to air missile with pinpoint

accuracy to blow a hospital to smithereens.

The corporations arrive the very next day

to rebuild the rubble at a false prophet’s profit.

Wall Street companies relocate overseas

to pay pennies for child labor in sweatshops

then sell the merchandise for nineteen

ninety nine. Civil wars are instigated

with coups to overthrow democratically

elected leaders who refuse American dollar bribes,

as genocidal dictators selling their resources

to us at a discount sit peacefully in their palace.

A young white male walks into a school

with semi-automatic weapons protected

by the second amendment and ammunition

purchased at the local Walmart and shoots

twenty two little boys and girls for no reason.

This is the way the world has been since birth,

so this must be the way the world has to be. 

   

 

My Father’s Son

I inherited

a misfortune

of worn genes

and dopamine

deficiency,

from the

why side

of the family.

I drink too much.

I don’t sleep enough.

My skull is full of nuts.

I self-destruct.

Until I find

a new disease,

eight hours a day,

five days a week.

Rage

My pen

stabs the page

until it bleeds

to death.

My fingers

strike the keys

until they weep

and submit

to my commands.

As I rage

for today.

My thoughts

expose my naked

body and mind

to an uncensored world.

My mind

is the most

dangerous weapon

to inflict suicide,

homicide and genocide.

As I rage

everyday.