Madness

[heslopian]

"I'm on my way to the promised land." - AC/DC

The walls are beige and the lockers are blue.
The linoleum floors are spotted with gum,
like tiny black holes. The strip lights
fill the halls with gloom, as though in each room
a still unclaimed corpse
waits among the books and chairs.

A young man shoots a teacher's aide
when she appears bearing files.
She lies in scattered paper like a bud.
He steps into the library and
blows the prom queen's head clean off.
Her brains decorate an English textbook
with Romeo on the cover.
Loud noises and death.
Loud noises and death.

Madness is like crossing a bridge.
I think about these massacres,
from the land of guns and meat,
and how straightforward they must be.
When a psychopath does
what a psychopath does
his cheeks don't flame with Greek passion.
He's crossed the bridge, he's walking through
the greying grass on its far side.