Sunday 25 October 2009

THE EEL BUCKET

What subliminal memory, what gene
causes these living, dying squirmers so to disquiet?
Why should corporal entwinings so unsettle,
fleshly twistings so disconcert,
bodily twirlings so disgust?


Worms and snakes are bad
but eels are worst.
Harmless, unless the snappy conger,
but I have seen
strong eyes shun, rugged faces blench,
appalled by these muddied writhings.


Atrocity lurks somewhere in the eel bucket
like a secret shame.
There brutally displaced,
now desperate in their poisoned chamber,
the doomed eels twitch, jerk, thresh ever the more
as round and round they go
in and about each others nakedness.
What ghastly convolutions!

A danse macabre!
Look away!

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