Meat
1. I am aware this meat is spoiling…
I am aware this meat is spoiling
Inside my burlap sack,
Wriggling in its shell, my meat,
Longing to be dried and sliced.
I am aware of this system
And the meat it produces,
Large quantities shipped
To other countries
Where it wriggles and slays
Other terrorized meat.
I am aware that alone in my room
I am nothing but nose, eyes, and teeth;
Not a social being nor construct
But a bloody heap of spoiled
Rotten meat, exclusively purchased
At A plus stores.
How to make words with this
Mouth, this clatter
Of tongue along fleshy flaps
And folds?
I simply choke them out,
Strangle ideas and let smiling out
The red oxygen of life
From my throat.
The image of supernal beauty
Will one day come to meat
When alone and daydreaming
In a block of wet cement,
And the act of transmutation is complete.
2. carnivorous warmth
Meat spoiled in the street,
Maggot covered, worm riddled,
Feasting on the sun’s carnivorous warmth.
Searching, meat spoiled and searching,
For a dinner plate
And serrated blade,
They willingly offer their bodies
As sacrifices for our right
To the night sky and gum covered,
Cigarette hugging, sidewalk.
There on the bus bench
A filthy meat sack cradles
His temples in muddy hands
And cries out;
There a meat, slick and young,
Consumes the remnants of
Yogurt from a plastic cup,
Surrounded by creeping weeds
And stone buildings;
Another meat, with young meat,
At the entrance to a freeway
Consuming the flesh
Of a small bird;
Young meat rips out the heart
And swallows it righteously,
While the other sweaty meat
Spoiled and slobbering,
Chuckle and cast ivory into the streets.
3. History and its architecture…
History and its architecture
Can be said to be
Pieces, no, sections,
Of bloody rotten meat.
Divided by the divine surgeon,
These sections harbor
The cellular domains
Of microbes and bacteria
Bombing and taxing each other.
Take refuge here,
Forget about the realities
In other sections,
Forget about meat in love,
Sleeping and dreaming meat,
Forget.
This is the only plane that matters
Wherein the sun reflects
Our barbaric disputes
With blade and lead.
I dispatch my arguments,
Flesh stuck between my teeth
And rotting bloody gums,
I dispatch my venom.
Divine surgeon, have you
Forgotten us?
Stitch the corpse back together.
Why do you insist
On letting us float through dust?
We want to be united
With other limbs,
Supply the joints and
Replace the sockets,
We were never meant
To be just rotten meat.
We’ve forgotten our history,
Our myths and heroes,
We’ve replaced meat with
Less satisfying meat, and we
Are starving for more.
My apron is filthy,
Drenched in the guts of glory,
And still the battle
Rages on in one direction,
Towards oblivion.
History, the desecrated vampire,
Feeds on the blood
Of our violent frenzy,
That is our lives, our fears,
And our memories;
It is the worm burrowing
Towards our core
Where the divine surgeon has stored
His last golden pearl.