To the Pathologically Bored American Man

[Achebe]

Thank god for cell phones:
you never look around anymore.
Now you don't need to fire your rifle
out the window of your Firebird
at whatever bunny or chickadee .....I'm not a big fan of 'or', the conjunction of convenience in poetry. I also think that 'bunny' is too cute a word to use here, trying too hard to damn the subject when the rest of of the lines do the trick anyway
catches your predatory eye.

You don't need to speed along
gravel roads at midnight,
swerving to pick off raccoons
as if the thud under your truck
from their busting brains
earns you points in some video game. ....a fresh last line that rounds off the strophe splendidly

You don't need to careen
into a neighbor's cornfield
—headlights off, doors open—  ....reminds me of  cow tipping in 'Cars', strangely.
and slam the pedal to the floor
just to see what happens
[to make something happen].

You don't need to whack
mailboxes with your baseball bats,
or make up jokes with your dawgs
to throw at the ugly dog on her bike ...I actually like that you use 'dog' here. A 'dawg' / 'bitch' combo would have been too predictable
or pin a pretty chick up against
the backside of the corner store. .....nice one

You don't need to dispatch
your mom's hatchback into a ditch
on a dare, flipping your best friend
sixteen feet out the passenger window,
breaking his skull open on a tree,
dissolving both your lives at sixteen. ....too intrusive. this line sinks the strophe.

You don't seek ecstasy or boast destruction.
Now you sit next to your friends in silence—
phones lighting your faces from underneath ...Todd said this already - great image.
like expressionless paintings—
and the world goes on without you
as it should have all along. .........fantastic ending. Yeah, wankers removed from the gene pool at any age are no loss to the world, are they?

Lizzie - you're just getting better and better. This one was splendid.