Against Farmers

Earth's burp put a flattened box of Filet-O-Fish in my path.
Grrr.  Filet-O-Fish.  I spewed up the herring you had sent me that morning
over the phone from Finland.  There wasn't even a McDonald's in town.
The old calamity was blowing in from the fields: cereal coaxed
into reassuring syrup – an inland Araby of blood-white milk.
First Babylon, then Alexandria, now this.
I needed a library to burn.
Time to get even.

*

Is there nothing clean to eat?  If not, no matter,
But we rely too much on the stomach's acid;
Not being broken we never try to fix it.
So this savours too much of arrogance or fear?
Well I'm afraid I am fed up with recyclage.
Systole.  Diastole.  Give nothing.  Take nothing in.
 

Rufo Quintavalle was born in London and lives in Paris. His work has appeared in The Wolf, Barrow Street, Upstairs at Duroc, nthposition, Louis Liard and elimae.