The seismic pothole on Main Street has grown
and has started to gnaw on the sidewalk.
Most motorists and all pedestrians
avoid the byway, preferring the park-
way instead, so we ask that you refill
the road starting with the hole. We had planned
to send thousands of pleasant letters, all
requesting this favor with eloquence.
Sadly—Harold has to take the children
to karate; Karen has Pilates
until seven, and the rest have chosen
not to care, so we elected a mouthpiece,
this young writer named Michael Ollinger,
to deliver these capital concerns.
Borborygmi
have finished their low growls and now howl
aloud just like
a ravenous wolf pack surveilling
the frozen lands
of the Arctic for lonesome elk.
From the muffled
muttering of other stomachs
sitting around
the table, I know that the storm
of starving wolves
are not the lone scavengers here.
Snarling dingoes
and snickering hyenas join
in the unrest
and request in guttural tones
that some ripe prey
is found or delivered post haste.
I start to pray
that my meal is served soon before
my gut’s moans grow
louder and warn my friends, fellow
feasters and beasts
on the prowl for hapless pizza.
Cows, fattened by fodder made of feces,
grain and other livestock, are packed and stacked
in grubby cubbyholes before being whacked
and hacked into crimson chunks and pieces,
which are then rendered into cooking grease
or ground into Big Mac patties—quick snacks
of fatty plaque to cake digestive tracts,
to stuff guts ‘til they grow chubby or obese.
Despite his customers’ plumping concerns
(and waistlines), Ronald still shines his sanguine
smile, so sure that some people will swallow
the shit even if E. Coli returns
or if they learn that part of their cuisine
has come from beef fattened off crap and cows.
Composed of a panoply of compounds
like H2O, tri-
calcium phosphate, sodium chloride,
“natural flavors,”
vanillin (an artificial flavor),
and things that my lips
cannot articulate adequately,
YooHoo wears yellow
to wrest your eyes and slide down your gullet
via your wallet.
You must be mindful of such subterfuge.
Waiting beneath broken bridges each week
can show no yield for the warty and odd.
Once, a goat passed whose face and voice were weak,
whose promises of his brother’s blood awed
me into letting him cross as a guest.
My gut could taste succulent goat offal
as a plumper kid soon came, but I should’ve guessed
that this one would get me something awful.
“Kill my bigger brother,” he lowed aloud,
“He ate our mother. He is no Gruff heir.”
“Fine,” my stomach grumbled, and I allowed
his passage as my belly swelled with air.
A bear-sized goat then bore down on me, heeling
my hairy head, which is just now healing.