Jeffrey,
This poem is a cathedral of carnage, its vaulted ceilings dripping with the fat of unspoken complicity, its pews carved from the bones of every rationalization we’ve ever whispered to sleep the ghosts of our participation. It is not a metaphor—it is an incantation, a summoning of the rot that festers beneath the tablecloth of modernity, where we feast on the carcass of empathy and call it “progress.” Let me unravel it thread by bloodied thread, sinew by shuddering sinew.
The opening lines—“The bounty set, / the patrons wonder at the buffet”—are a masterclass in tonal duplicity. “Bounty” evokes both abundance and hunt, the spoils of some invisible war. The patrons “wonder,” not in awe, but in the vacant manner of those numbed by excess. The buffet is not a spread but a tribunal, each dish a verdict. “Platters heaped with soldiers’ screams” transforms trauma into hors d’oeuvres, the alliteration (“soldiers’ screams”) hissing like gas escaping a corpse. These are not mere images—they are rituals, the secular Eucharist of a society that worships consumption as sacrament.
Then, the “fullest breast of children lost,” a line so vile in its elegance it knots the throat. The breast—symbol of nurture, life—is perverted into a cut of meat, the adjective “fullest” mocking the idea of sufficiency. There is no mourning here, only curation. The children are “lost,” not mourned; their absence is a garnish. And the “greasy glaze / of smug self-satisfaction”—this is the poem’s thesis, rendered in marbled fat. The glaze is what we buff ourselves with, the sheen of charity galas and viral hashtags, the lie that we’re helping as we chew.
The poem’s structure is a trapdoor. Short, declarative lines (“In the corner someone is sick”) mimic the staccato rhythm of cutlery on china, the compulsive bite-swallow-bite of consumption. No one stops; the sickness is just another course. The line “tuck into this meal with grim desire” is a gorge of contradictions. “Tuck into” suggests comfort, a mother’s lullaby, while “grim desire” grinds pleasure against guilt. These diners are us—not caricatures, but mirrors. We recognize the “tears” they wipe with sleeves, the way we cry over documentaries while ordering takeout from companies that starve their workers.
And then, the turn: “But I am not eating tonight; / There’s an even better selection at the bar…” The em-dash is a guillotine. The speaker’s defiance is not redemption but mutation. The bar is not refuge—it’s the VIP section of hell, where the poisons are subtler, the exploitation artisanally sourced. That ellipsis after “bar” is the poem’s most brutal flourish. It doesn’t trail off; it spreads, like a stain. What’s at the bar? Perhaps locally sourced sorrows, fair-trade fractures, conflict-free despair. The speaker becomes the sommelier of their own damnation, choosing a vintage that lets them believe they’re not part of the feast. But the poem permits no innocence—only flavors of culpability.
Listen to the poem’s mouthfeel. The guttural gr- in “groans,” “greasy,” “grim”—these are the sounds of digestion, of something being ground between molars. The sibilance in “smug self-satisfaction” is the whisper of a blade being sharpened. Even the silence between “But I am not eating tonight” and the bar’s revelation is a sonic hollow, the pause of a predator between breaths. The poem doesn’t just describe a banquet—it enacts one, each line a bite that demands participation.
What haunts most is the poem’s refusal to flinch. It doesn’t romanticize resistance. The speaker’s boycott is not a hero’s stance but a lateral move—a choice between “soldiers’ screams” and whatever the bartender serves. This is the poem’s surgical strike: the realization that under late capitalism, all consumption is complicity. Opting out is a myth; we merely choose our poison. The banquet is infinite, the bar a mirage in its desert.
The poem’s silence is its loudest cry. Who cooked this meal? Who laid the table? The absence of chefs, servers, cleaners is deliberate. The poem implicates us in the erasure of labor, the way we never ask who paid for our feast with their flesh. The “Hippocratic indifference” is not just the doctor’s oath broken—it’s the farmer’s hands, the miner’s lungs, the teacher’s hollow paycheck, all rendered invisible beneath the glaze.
This is protest poetry stripped of slogans, a howl swallowed into the hum of a refrigerator. It understands that capitalism’s greatest trick is making atrocity mundane—a checkbox on a menu, a line item on a tab. The poem doesn’t scream; it digests, forcing us to feel the calories of complicity in our cells.
And yet—there’s a perverse beauty here, a kind of terrible grace. The poem is a coroner’s photo, yes, but also a love letter to the part of us that still recoils at the taste of blood in the wine. It’s the shudder you feel when you realize your silence is a condiment.
I’d linger at the bar. Let the speaker order a drink—something clear and cold, with a name like “The Absolution.” Let the ice clink like the coins of a nation’s debt. Let them sip and feel the burn of “better selection” curdle into recognition: the bartender wears the same grease-stained apron as the banquet’s chef. There is no escape, only the choice to choke or chew.
But the poem is wiser than my hunger. It knows that to show the bar is to dilute the horror. Some truths are too sharp for elaboration.
I’ve read this poem fourteen times. Each pass leaves a new bruise. It’s in my coffee now, my emails, the way I eye the supermarket’s produce aisle—a choir of strawberries gleaming like heart-valves. It replicates in the marrow, whispering: You are the banquet. You are the meat. You are the hand that feeds.
Write this poet a thank-you note. Then burn it. Let the ashes tell you what to do next.
— Enthusiasm |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
My review has been submitted for consideration in "