Block and Blade
by Odin Roark

Like the Local butcher
receiving deliveries of
chain-linked corpses,
all made-cold-for-aging,
swinging stridently along
like our own masses of degradable tissue,
powerlessly attached to faith hung rails--

We too move helplessly forward to
Time's ultimate sacrifice,
perpetuity being fed
to nourish Time's daily dying.

Just as the clock for shopping's rush hour
urges the butcher to cleaver his offerings,
so too the ticking of our own destiny
hastens hood and scythe for one last supper.

Atop the block
straddles blade upon blade,
awaiting the careful severing of
anticipation, sans hurrah.

For Now has arrived.

The ice cold reality.

Life's slice.

No dice.

Package-wrapped fragments
awaiting Nature's ultimate ingestion,
soon to become tomorrow's
promises finally made ready.

Cooking-Life's books?

What say them
The butcher
The baker
The candlestick maker?

How long will they/we endure the frost
of temporary preservation,
knowing we could be embracing,
rather than staving off the so-called end?