It sits there,

poised to spring into action,
its antennae fully extended,
pulling in suspicious signals
from even the
remotest places,
its muscles taut and flexing
involuntarily,
its 20 eyes and ears
as wide open as a screaming
baboon's mouth.
Its skin buzzes like an overhead
high-tension line, feeling the movement
of every molecule on its surface.
Its terrible razor-like teeth
and vicious, unsheathed raptor claws
are ready at a moment's
notice
to rip, with berserk fury,
into anything
that gets
its attention,
however "innocent" looking.
It is fully prepared to explode
into bloody, jaw-dropping
action
at the slightest provocation
or hint
or imagining
or whisper
of disagreement.
It has caused
irrevocable damage
more times than I can
count, although now
it tends to act out its ugly
slasher dramas in private
more than in public.
Some of its victims deserve it;
others turned out to have been
wrongfully executed; most of
its targets, oddly, never know
they are under all-out assault.
I've worn out a number
of leashes on it, and now,
at last,
I think it's finally getting
weary of the war against the
shadows and
papier mache monsters
it's been waging
all these decades.