1
Tank Nixon was mean
and that ain’t no lie.
Once shot a psychiatrist
just to hear him ask, “Why?”

Shot him again,
shot him straight through the heel,
then mocked him, asking,
“How did that make you feel?”

Cut off his ear,
savored blood’s pour and glisten,
held it to the shrink’s mouth,
said, “Let’s have us a listen.”

“Give me a bon mot
from what’s left of your breath,
one last nugget of wit
before I send you to death.”

The poor dying shrink
can’t make reason or rhyme
so he points to the clock,
tries, “We’ve run out of time?”

Tank says to the doc
“Oh, not we, doc. Just you.”
Sticks eyelids to eyebrows
roughly with Krazy Glue.

“Here’s a little secret
between you and I.
when I kill a man I always, ALWAYS
look him straight in the eye.”

“I want to see his last look,
him seein’ it’s not the Grim Reaper,
but me, Jethro ‘Tank’ Nixon
standing there as death’s keeper.”

“That’s why if you’ve read this
real close like you should
you’d know I ain’t never killed Henry Gutterman -
he died face down,
two shots to the BACK of the head,
wearing a hood.”

2
Parole Denied.