Day 17: "Advice for the Modern Mass Killer" by William G. Rector

Day 17 of 30 Days of The Five-Two features "Advice for the Modern Mass Killer" by William G. Rector.

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William G. Rector

ESCAPE FROM DALLAS

From the picture
in the cross hairs
(the President's head)
the rest of the gun

has been fashioned.
Turning at high speed
three black screws,
boom, boom, boom,

fix parts together.
Pleased with
what you've done?
Pull the trigger.

Nothing happens
because it already did.
Your head echoes.
The Book Depository

is soon overrun
by readers who
thumb every room
but don't find you

or the weapon,
which is in your head
and no longer looks
like what it did.


Bill reads "Escape from Dallas":



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Bill confesses: "I think every murder occurs in a mirror. The victim and killer are there confined, but so are those who observe from afar. Dallas was a mirror as wide as the country and as small as a wound, and we won't escape it."

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.

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.