6. Paul's Epistle to the New Confederacy (Pt.6) The South Has Risen

Will you take one of your guns

And shoot me?

I want nothing of yours

I will never take anything of yours

Why such fury?

Do you want to kill me because

I don’t hate brown people?

Do you want to push my dementia-addled mother off the roof

Because she doesn’t hate brown people?

What is it that I can offer unto you

That will soothe your desire to

Debone my family like a butchered chicken?

What has dessicated your heart

That you seek to drown children

Because they are brown children?

Do you dream of the time when

Someone in a uniform tells

You to unleash your arsenal

On hippies and liberals?

Why?

What would the gain be?

What is the grievance to

Spark such blood feud?

Please tell me.

What do I own to barter

Your rage for acceptance?

Name it.

I will render unto

Peace’s hard tax

The necessary coin.

I don’t understand your weapons

And I don’t want them.

And I don’t want the guy that

I pass everyday

Who lives under the interstate

Ignorant of his filth and nudity

Shouting profanity in an unknown language

At cars all day long from his office chair,

I don’t want him to have a gun.

Stand down,

Stand down,

Do not kill me.

Let’s share a lemonade

On a hot day

And watch my grandchildren

And your grandchildren

Run under a common sprinkler

Blessed and baptized in

The rapture of laughter,

The communion of joy.