Apples & Owls at Midnight (Part 7)

By Scott Thomas Outlar

I would sing to my bacon

(if it still existed/pre-digested/

post-potbelly flesh)

as well –

slaughtered & peppered in the Portland farms

before being

brought to *a sizzle* bear

(your cross

was left

in the last age

[when Socrates sucked &

swallowed poison/

hemlocked his last

hemorrhage]

gone haywire

when tipping the high hat)

but I left it

at the bar

(absentminded,

muted, mutilated, mutated, massacre/

Momma Mia: can ya hear me?

[is there anybody

{in/out/all around

bleeding/belting loud

their honest soul}

still there?])

I’d dance, too, full &/or starving

(for the truth

[I had a taste

& want the full dose/disclosure])

when we all turn pig (oink, oink, bingo bonkers)

but not swine

(though butchered just the same) –

there is a difference & I know that you know

that we know that they know that it’s all

sure to run red (w/carnage) toward the same

(shallow) sea

in the end

I would sing to my bacon

(if it still existed/pre-digested/

post-potbelly flesh)

as well –

slaughtered & peppered in the Portland farms

before being

brought to *a sizzle* bear

(your cross

was left

in the last age

[when Socrates sucked &

swallowed poison/

hemlocked his last

hemorrhage]

gone haywire

when tipping the high hat)

but I left it

at the bar

(absentminded,

muted, mutilated, mutated, massacre/

Momma Mia: can ya hear me?

[is there anybody

{in/out/all around

bleeding/belting loud

their honest soul}

still there?])

I’d dance, too, full &/or starving

(for the truth

[I had a taste

& want the full dose/disclosure])

when we all turn pig (oink, oink, bingo bonkers)

but not swine

(though butchered just the same) –

there is a difference & I know that you know

that we know that they know that it’s all

sure to run red (w/carnage) toward the same

(shallow) sea

in the end

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Apples & Owls at Midnight (Part 7) features in Erato's Issue III: Hunger - available in print and online.

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About the Author:

Scott Thomas Outlar is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He now lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. He is the author of seven books. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past eight and a half years. Selections of his poetry have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Cherokee, Dutch, French, Hindi, Italian, Kurdish, Malayalam, Persian, Serbian, and Spanish. More about Outlar's work can be found at 17Numa.com.