Cheetah Gone Ape? Poem by Joe Rosochacki

Have you had your Xanax in a cup of tea lately?
Travis a chimp, not Twitt,
did go on the rampage;
He was 14 years old,
When he attacked his owner’s friend,
Charla Nash, she is 55 years old.
Sandra Herold
-raised up him as though he was son or daughter,
Travis ran away a couple times,
held up traffic at an intersection,
he was non-violent,
Travis’s social skills included drinking wine from a stemmed glass,
dressing
and bathing himself
and using a computer.
What on earth,
or should I say jungle,
got into him?
Before the chimp was shot dead,
He attacked Ms Nash viciously,
because he failed to go joy riding,
Ms. Herold told detectives that Travis was in a rambunctious mood Monday afternoon.
He took her keys from the kitchen table, unlocked a door and let himself out into the yard at 241 Rock Rimmon Road. “He’s going to different cars and tapping on them,
trying the doors,
a clear indication he wanted to go for a ride, ” Captain Conklin said.
Travis was not be lured to coming back in the house,
Even Ms. Herold laced a cup of tea with Xanax to give to him,
(That’s what got into him.)
In order to calm him down,
Travis, became like a tripped out ape that was on acid or meth,
Ms. Nash had markedly changed her hairstyle since the last time Travis had seen her,
possibly leading him to mistake her for an intruder.
Then Travis in his tirade left Ms. Nash with many broken bones as she lay,
In Ms. Herold’s driveway,
Travis fled,
After a short time Travis returned to Herold’s home,
Where police where gathering for him to meet,
After a while, Captain Conklin said,
Travis returned and “went after the officers.” He knocked a mirror off the passenger’s side of a police cruiser with one swing of his arm, then ran around to the driver’s side, opened the door and attacked the officer in the driver’s seat.
“He’s trapped in his car, ” Captain Conklin said. “He has nowhere to go. So he pulls his sidearm and shoots the chimp several times in close proximity.”
Travis was dead.
Ms. Nash has been hospitalized but her condition is iffy,
The moral the story,
if you have pet chimp,
which I believe you shouldn’t have,
Don’t put Xanax in his or her tea.

Two weeks have passed with Charla being heavily sedated in the hospital,
She lost hands,
nose,
lips and eyelids,
- and could’ve sustained brain damage above all,
The authorities are thinking whether to charge Herold with something,
Justice to Charla, they ought to bring.

(3-5-09)