how to recognise a psychopath™ in the catfood aisle
there will be a plausible whiff of déjà vu
look for the sign Hitler peed here first
the numbers won’t add up
there will be acolytes
intense purring then
slaughter
how to recognise a psychopath™ in the mirror
ain’t going to happen
how to recognise a psychopath™ after the election
I never said that
you people in the media
I never slept with my eyes open
you people you people
you people who want me to blink
why am I surrounded by imbeciles
you media people
if it wasn’t for me
you’d be history
tomorrow
you will
how to avoid employing psychopaths™
previous disastrous experience is preferable
keep the voltage to a minimum
when they tell you what they can do for the organisation
they will
what to do if a psychopath™ stars in a TV series
count the bodies
count the number of women
count the times you have seen it all before
calculate the millions made through the ritual slaughter
of women in x√2 crime programmes to the power of 10
change channels and repeat
till sated
what to do if you are a psychopath™
impossible
but read the textbooks anyway
and improve your functionality
in disabling liberals
educational venues
recommended
what to do when psychopaths™ read poetry
not recommended
systemic failure indicated
what to do when all else fails™
the unit will self-destruct within a given time frame
meanwhile avoid suspect civilisations
deploy intuitively based early warning systems
run
Really enjoyed this, Jeffrey. Seems light on the surface, but there’s a sinister element too.
Hi Janis – thanks. The experience in garnering the poem was pretty sinister too, or rather, the relationship.
I love the rhythm, and I particularly love what remains unsaid! And as Janis says, there’s an underlying chill that continues to disturb after you’ve finished reading.
Hi Kathleen. Yes, the chill is there in person at times. Goodness knows where the rhythm came from – it just bubbled up from the title, and so I went with it. It is, in its way – I feel – a protest poem against toxic organizations, powers complexes run by males that employ people like this to do the dirty work of sacking large swathes of staff, and otherwise laying waste. Margaret Thatcher was a female exception.
Almost as though the poem grew more serious as it went along …
That’s true, I think it grew, ‘though it was always ‘serious’. Poems grow, I think, because we don’t know where they’re going – well, hopefully, we don’t.
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