NEW! Poem by Marcus E. Darnell

Marcus E. Darnell

MEAT

The cat's head is mashed by the wheel;
it steams,
the fluorescence devours.

The luncheon meat flowers up the fridge,
ham,
the roach sniffs beneath the fridge,

assumes: fresh kill.
A cloud from the pig factory
is bait to the bats,

while sister chicken prays
in the guillotine shed.
Mrs. Schurman is doing a

wrist job into the bathtub.
What would dead Mr.
have said, seeing these

home-cooked, fresh bleeding
lips on her wrists?
The roach smells her juice:

it must be the juice
of Jesus, he longs
to eat Jesus.

Bats pick gnat meat
from the pig air.
They faint, drop

when too much pig cloud
has come along.
It's raining mice.

The chicken hears
the rabid downpour,
thinks the bathtub lady

has come for her eggs
or meaningful guts.
The luncheon meat world

and the bathtub
blood heaven
yank the roach's soul apart,

who to eat and find peace in.
The Mrs. dizzies out:
why did he leave me

alone to eye the death
of this dry neighborhood
while he is munched

in the ground
on that fucking
Holy Hill?

I can't hold his sweaty
hand on the porch
anymore while behind

yellowed shades
stains are being made,
oh my thin Lord!

She feels nothing for
the cat brains swarming
with bats rejuvenated

by the pig cloud.
They swarm like the gnats
they bagged.

The fluorescence is hungry
again and angel-wings out
to that salty,

sexed pig air.
The factory lurches
inches closer, but

only at this preyish
time of night.
Inside the factory

unholy things happen
to meat--
the chicken knows,

and the Mrs. would
have known had she lived
to whack off

the chicken's humanly
begging head, but
the factory is another

sphere with its own
foul disciples
harpooning sacrifices

through the eyeballs.
The factory is
a honey-cured hell

blessed be.
The chicken shits
an egg in an effort

to be saved.
The bats flee to
chimneys--they've had

too much pig air.
The kitty bones
still steam.

The bats activate
their upside-down acids.
They dream of snouts.

The fridge's hum
begins to stutter
and choke: the ham thinks.

The Mrs., drained,
doesn't leave herself
as long as she is flesh.

The fat in her brain
quivers, the roach
chooses religion

between her legs;
he'll live like a scarab
in her coffin till

Ra tells him otherwise.
The chicken is the last
awake in the night.

Her eggs cracks open
before she can squat.
She has the privilege

to see her abortion
as the golden Eye.
It is not meat

but it smells of pig.