Il Connoisseur Sanguinante
“Actually,” said Death, pausing to wipe
his bony chin, “I find that I miss the old
method of flavoring. What was it called?”
he asked, rattling fork on finger bones.
“Marvelous aroma, if memory serves,”
he added, glancing hopefully up the
length of table stretched to everlasting.
But on hearing no reply from his ravenous
companions, only the clack of knives
on china, he fell silent. “Unfiltered!”
he cried out, sitting up straight. “Un…filtered,”
he sighed, savoring the word’s invocation
of days gone by. “It was strong, I tell you,
possessed of an imperishable integrity.
It presented a challenge, of sorts;
you felt larger when it was over, pierced
with the incessant rhythm of Earth’s eternal
depth and darkness, unlike this… soup,”
he ended, gesturing at his plate. “Ah, well,”
he sighed as he cracked another rib cage
and speared the soft brown morsels which
he inspected with a wary eye before
popping them into his mouth,
“life goes on.”
by Matt Dennison, first published in The Spoon River Poetry Review.
Editor’s Note: Third person point of view is interesting and rare in poems these days. This narrative is a gruesome delight. Ah, the good old days…
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