Monday, March 3, 2014

Shark Week for Poetry

The Shark Prepares a Menu

Spicy, bitter, bland
or sweet
it makes no difference
what the treat—
I really don't
discriminate
as any food
I find first rate

though pirate meat
is exquisite
and leather boots
a savory bit
and kegs of nails
and rubber rafts
are good as steak
and red carafes

of wine expensive
tastes prefer.
From odd cuisine
I don't demur
but eat with gusto
and aplomb.
"The world's a plate"
is rule of thumb

for sharks with fins
and razor teeth
who waste no time
on funeral wreaths
for luscious bass
or octopus.
I'd love to taste
sad Oedipus

who walked on four,
then two and three—
I yearn to snack
on tragedy
and all related plays
devour.
I'd sample new ones
every hour:

Sweet Juliet
and Romeo
would be delicious
on a roll.
I'd answer Hamlet
very fast
when "Be or not to be?"
he asked

before I moved
to motion pictures.
I'd not be bound
by timid strictures.
Dorothy, Toto, kindly
Wizard—
I guess I'm less a fish
than gizzard.

In pleasant dreams,
I swallow Earth
and eat all things
before their birth.
Would you think me
strange, perverse
if next I ate
the universe?

by Nels Hanson
in Volume 2 Issue 2

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