Gunshots

What a difference they make,
these words I choose to use:
whether or not I select a bison
or a butterfly,

whether or not
I praise the President
or choose
to see him erased,

whether or not
he stays loyal to his fate or rises
up like a lion or a dragon
to contest it — I will be content

knowing that I sat back and studied
all of the earth and considered carefully
which words made the most sense
and offered the most fury to the moment —

these are my words now
until I release them. I give them
to you knowing how little
they have meant before now,

believing they mean more,
so much more than they ever did —
they honor the bison snorting softly,
shooting clouds over his hooves;

they praise and revere the swallowtail
coming so fitfully over the fields, settling in
on one flower then another; and
they alternately curse and ignore

a fat old man in the Oval Office,
sleeping and raging alternately,
stinking of shit and Irish Spring soap.
I release them once I’ve taken them

into my arms. They are better off
now. Lion or dragon, buffalo
or small bird-like critter — immortalized
like this, or captured and fragile like that;

it doesn’t matter. It is all
a game world we live in. We and they
will live or die regardless of these words.
So: roll the dice, then. Roll them out

upon reading these words,
and see what follows them —
roar of lion, flame of dragonish snake,
or your gunshots in his halls of power.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T