William G. Rector

ADVICE FOR THE MODERN MASS KILLER

Shoot the messenger
in the head.
That's my advice.
If not, shoot the fellow
who sent the messenger.
You know who he is.
He's bad news.
He looks like you.
Since you have a gun
and ammunition to spare
you better find the one
who told that fellow
to send the messenger
and shoot him, too.
Because if you don't
he'll come after you.
It won't stop there.
It never does.
It takes an army
to defeat the army
of the ones who sent
the one who sent
the one who sent
the messenger
in your head.
You'll never be done.
See step one.


Bill reads "Advice for the Modern Mass Killer":



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Bill confesses: "This poem was originally about Dutch Schultz, and how a fight for survival, and then dominance, led to the necessity to kill almost everyone around. But then I saw that that psychology applied even more to the modern mass killer, who is usually a paranoid schizophrenic. Dutch Schultz would never have considered killing himself."

WILLIAM G. RECTOR is a physician who is also a poet. Perhaps that early training in pathology led him to an interest in crime, as a number of his poems concern criminals, although usually in an historical context.