Poetry Report: Guns & Cabbage
“receiving death threats from other gun owners”
A poem for the owner of the gun shop that is receiving death threats from other gun owners who don't want him to sell a gun that won't fire unless the gun's owner is holding it.
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Oh, Don't Tell Me You've Lost All Hope
Take this guy who would throw cabbage at
people casually
and without warning,
because no one likes cabbage.
Nonchalantly, he'd carve
one into a skull shape
and set it on your bookshelf.
He hated coleslaw
and he was a cabbage farmer.
He had a habit of walking around
with a cabbage on his shoulder,
talking to it.
And when someone suggested
he should do that for school children
to encourage them to eat vegetables,
he'd say "I'm insane, not a vegetarian."
He'd say other stupid things:
"Cabbage skin is the closest thing to
human skin."
People throughout the county
became slightly amused
by his inane ramblings.
He developed a little following
of enamored fans. He stopped a robbery
at the Quickstop by expertly chucking
a cabbage at the gun.
The cabbage stuck to the end
of the gun and the gun
fell from the robber's hand.
But the shoulder cabbage
was killed instantly
by a stray bullet.
The shoulder cabbage became
a town hero. They erected
a giant steel cabbage in the
middle of the town's traffic circle
that they nicknamed "Captain Cabbage."
Then everyone thought the town
was the Cabbage Capital of the World,
which wasn't even remotely true
or good for the tourism industry.
The cabbage farmer was so angered,
he tried to crawl on top of Captain Cabbage
to turn its head to coleslaw, but the Captain
let loose from its moorings,
rolled over him, rumbled through the Dairy Queen,
smashed three cars and ended up in the town
swimming pool covered in blood and hamburgers.
Which, turns out, was incredibly good
for the tourism industry
and if you can't derive a bit hope from that
I don't know what to tell you.
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