Black Coffee (Timberbee)
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
Black Coffee
By Tim Berube
A single shot rings out
From where?
Squeals a feeding pig
It totters
On
Unsteady feet
Shakes its bloody head in wonder
And again
Resumes
The filling of its belly
The first shot struck false
And the next
And the next
Until one lands
Which knocks
The still feeding beast
From its feet
And drives
The air
From its lungs
It is as if thirteen men
With sharpened knives in trusted hands
Rush forward
Rather
Than the three we are
Children
Sent away with their tear stained faces
Long drags
Through crusty snow
Showing
Their unwillingness to leave
Wives
Left alone
Behind barred doors
Tend
The fate
Of other flesh
Screams echo
Through the canyons
Today
It is innocence
Which dies
Along with
The wide-eyed
Trusting souls
Who heeded
The call
To feed
Like some great race
Faces are set
Hard
Determined
We rush forward
Hands
Bodies
Meet
Atop a struggling
Pink form
A knife flashes
Descends
Twin gouts of blood skyward
Sent
Raising
A cry from somewhere
In pens beyond
A thunder of hooves
Tested fences
Squeals of anger
Bellows of rage
Confusion
Terror
Yet still
The knife slides
Hesitates
Grates
Upon bony cartilage
Halted
Ever so briefly
In its steady progress
A shruddered breath
Escapes
From between new found lips
Struggling legs
Cease to hold
And downward
Our weight would plunge
Should we relax
Our grip
Heaven set eyes
Glaze
Yet still we hold
As
The blade
Has not yet Done its work
Onward
It plunges
Deeper
It delves
To strike
The still
Beating center
Within
Screams of betrayal
From beyond
Merge
With the sounds of anguish
From nearby
As one we turn and flee the scene
Dying muscles
Sinews
Find
New vigor
Striking out in greater and greater spasms
Flinging the heaving body
Skyward
To fall again
And again
To
The blood soaked Earth
Unfeeling hooves scatter men like straw
Threatening
Gate
And
Bone
And
Flesh alike
We gather
Again
About the great
Roaring
Propane jets
Which
Boil water
For the scalding
And the scraping
Yet to follow
We watch
As once terrified
Brothers
Return
Descending
In a body
To feed
Upon the blood
Of their
Now
Lifeless companion
Darting
Occasionally
From
Ever stilling feet
Ever slowing form
And black coffee
Is handed all around
With upturned face
And
Shining eyes
I take it up
In joyous hands
To sip upon this
Sweetest
Of
Nectars
Sweet only
On this day
The day
When all
The pigs
Will die