"Vultures" repost

[radiantfracture]

Posting again for a performance application! (Also, M. used the poem in his class. How cool is that?)

A poem about making art in a bad time.


Vultures

I say vultures are the only poets:
they gorge on the remains
of old age and surprise attacks
treachery, waste, and accident
Cholera, botulism, and anthrax --
They swallow everything, and transmute it
into thick black feathers, into flight.

Let me be like that, unabashed to be seen
naked and hideous and hungry, transforming
in the boiling kettle of my belly
all the poison in the meat,
all the sickness and sour hate
into undigestible beauty.