Table d'hôte

Chaïm Soutine, The Table (ca. 1923), oil on canvas. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

Every angel is terrible.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, No. 1

200 billion vertebrates

Die every year to feed us;

I wonder if they think their lives

Are worth our human fuss.

Before they die, they suffer,

Confined to cruel spaces;

The last thing they live to see

Are killers’ human faces.

Okay, I’m writing doggerel—

It's lingua franca time!

Yahweh's sunk in holy dotage,

Something to do is whine.

At this late stage in mythic rage,

The desperate angels drivel.

Monday, April 21, 2025