Thursday, the Second Week of Lent

Thursday, the Second Week of Lent

Hunger
as words go
has become cheap and unreal
it is bought and sold
in the fast food shops
of the theological
political
and economic market places.

Hunger is hurried meals
of reports and statistics
pre-cooked
kept-warm facts and figures
ready to serve at a moment’s cry of concern.

The menu reads
like rendings of the heart
APPETIZER: according to the current estimate
of world food reserves on hand today
we could survive as long without them
as we could with: 27 starving days.
MAIN COURSE: applying red meat’s bloody equation
(8 to 10 lbs. of feed equals 1 lb. of meat)
survival’s chances shrivel
as stomachs bloat.
JUST DESSERT: World hunger.

Our minds swell deliciously
on the crumbs falling from the tables
of those rich in gourmet gruesome facts
and simmering in their own doom.
Their meals glitter
like falling stars and suns going nova
against a blood-red moon
as earth wets its lips
in the vigil of disaster.

We feed on doom
grow fat and lazy
heart-heavy in the thrill of brinkmanship
unable to kick the habit:
too fast
to fast.