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Saturday, June 15, 2019

EXOTIC THRILLS

by Mark Zimmermann


April 13, 2019 photo taken at USA ガンクラブ Shooting Range, Tamuning, Guam.


Luxury shooting ranges
dot the tourist colony of Guam,
draw planeloads of Japanese.

They want an authentic
American experience
unavailable at home:

blasting away with firearms.
Pistol, shotgun, assault rifle,
submachine gun—open fire,
get a glossy souvenir photo.

Their moment of exotic thrills
over, the tourists return
to life in Japan.

Where in 2017
there were
three gun homicides.


Mark Zimmermann’s first poetry collection, Impersonations, was published by Pebblebrook Press in 2015. His work has previously appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Stoneboat, and elsewhere. From 1990-2001 he lived in Japan and is currently working on a poetry ms. centered on his time there. Currently he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.