Saturday, January 23, 2010

The unkind art of feeding

You have to feed on something,

they said, or I imagine them
saying, and I do... but I don't
want to feed,
at least not doing it to trade
in visible doubts for a life's
uncertain

drift between I am, and I'm not...
fed fat by the neatly packaged
carcasses
clearly drained and cellophane wrapped,
to keep unclean hands bloodlessly
far from mine.

I'm told but I won't hear, We're more
highly evolved
. We think therefore
we are so
discomfited by not knowing...
whether the fed-on think and feel
what we do

when life's last light runs out, taking
with it the green and red that played
over flesh
and bony because... if they do,
it could be, we're feeding on one
another.

That's the unkind art of feeding.

5 comments:

timmy said...

and the ketchuo bottles will go out, one after another
as the hamburgers roll their oysters on the special blue plates
... and the waitress lights her last cigarette

Anders said...

I felt like when watching an old sci-fi movie from the sixties when reading this (in a good way; they're fantastic sometimes). I came to think about a statement I heard once: if life is feeding on each other, is there a case for cooperation? I love the rhythm in the poem.

Jenny said...

I love the eerie feeling here and the absurdity mixed with humor.

This is my favorite part:

"fed fat by the neatly packaged/
carcasses/clearly drained and cellophane wrapped"

I am glad that I am a vegetarian. Haha.

Francis Scudellari said...

Thanks all. We are what we eat, and that's not a very good thing :)

Anonymous said...

This is a good journey,