Living

Every day I grow more like a butcher,
From a saw-dust puffed out stage for musical,
Garnering the red cheeks and the wares, he worships them.

Basso celebration of the dried out gammon –
Bloodied fillet caught up in refrain,
Crowned with rashers, lamby sceptre, early rising
Greets him, greets that daily killy tang.

I used to handle stuffs with care
And rank up sausages in style
I never wasted offal then
Each bone told a fair tale.

But the voice grows compulsive
For the red germs at the raw,
A shelf collapsed last Monday –
Ill stacked upon the Sunday –
The shanks now need a saw
Even custom grows repulsive.

He’s slowed down with the commerce and he’s in it for himself,
He sort of takes a bath. Earlier, redder, rise, baptised with ham,
The morning folding out like pudding skin,
A gamey pre-luncheon becomes tartare;
We lurch about through mince skeins and blood pie.
When routine becomes metaphor, it gets
Hard to hold back. He blames the suffragettes.
I think it went back longer, mammothwards,
But mercy for that steak –

It is, when we come down to it, a piece of meat.
It is our friend. Don’t land it woman’s name.