My name is Paco and I’m a Meataholic. So. I have not yet discovered the twelve steps with which I might release myself from the horrors of my addiction. I think I might be content with being addicted to meat a little more than being addicted to having been addicted to meat. Or maybe whatever.
“Paracelsus says that the matter is coagulated smoke, and that the human body is ‘vapour materialized by sunshine mixed with the life of the stars’.”
Steve Richards, INVISIBILITY
“Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something out of an incident. Marriage is dangerous.”
Albert Einstein
Meat is delicious perhaps exactly because it takes us away from our own tenderness and often simply puts us to sleep.
I’m spending the evening with a lovely melon. But I can hear those sausages screaming down the street…
PACOBOOKS
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
I
Eat the Meat at T’s diner
Meat in the meatloaf
Okay do those pork chops
Real mashed potatoes in any case
Meatloaf dark gravey glistening
Good big pile of those potates
Eat the meat no thought to
Beat the meat oh they connect
First time we saw a horse
With a hardon second time a bull
Maybe if we eat some of that
Our dicks will grow & grow & grow
His face covered with meat pieces
On his hands grease in his hair
Who is this companion where did he get
That great wild car with all those seats
Women whine to be with him whimper for
A ride in the car a real meatwagon
Like his mind right out of the stockyards
Onto the plates into the toilets.
II
The plate of meatballs materializes from
Nowhere nowhere at all now here of course
Right here after seventeen rhythms lots of
Drums food galore tequilla coffee from their
Morning cold now thick and delicious
The duende’s coming and going four or six
New breasts and their bodies’ spirits their
Voices their shining eyes their sense of
Rhythm
It’s after one hands go at the meatballs
The platterfull dwindles down to nothing
I wrap the last one in a slice of cucumber &
Before I slide it down I think of Thursdays
In my mom’s cage that’s when the supper comes
She lifts the cover from the larger plate
Stares at 4 or 5 Porcupine Meatballs & a little
Cup of gravey rice equals quills see
Whoever made the first meatball had lots of
Time and moving hand had he moved them over
Her breasts did he get the clue from that
If we stroked with fondness the animal however
Many feet matters little last laugh comes up
Only from the living did someone kill the
Mother & then say get a load of this feast or
Was it a thing when still alive
A pulsing down the throat.
III
I’m thinking of meat more than five miles
Up above some part of below no food several
Drinks & a puny bag of pretzels the window
Gets larger as I get drunker some serious
Clouds almost within reach if they get too
Close you know there’s nothing but whirring
Now a bunch of bosomy beauties loom up roll
About swell fully out the form of the elegant
Buxom Lass of the Clouds
The clouds disappear but before total clarity
Edges of profiles handsome heads faces of tools
Some shady vegetables & lots of sausages &
Sausage shapes chops seldom seen cuts of meat
Meat & flying & sure everyone gets Sainted in
The end or is it sautéd
Clouds are filled with halos
Tipping towards my thoughts sometimes one
Floats in hovers over the greasy sausage I’m
Loathe to eat
I suck it in anyway
The plane from Chicago to Philly heads down
Below Washington there’s a storm to slide under
Pilot said so supper’s there in front of us my
Anonymous companions on either side stare at their
Food white knuckles on arms of seats
I eat their sausages too.
IV
In the late 40’s I went to the doubleheaders on
Sundays in Shibe Park some knew it as Connie Mack
Stadium the A’s and the Phillies used it so there
Were games every week every Sunday all season long
My baseball buddy and I would mow lawns collect
Old bottles anything we could to get the few bucks
Needed for the train the subway the ticket god
What a sweet thing that ticket Grandstand one buck
And a quarter sit wherever you wanted most of the
Time since the park held over 30,000 and they were
Lucky to get 10 in those days
If the money thing worked, we had enough to get
Hot dogs and peanuts and sodas for both games
If we were shy fifty cents to a buck we’d chew on
The peanut shells which we saved through the last
Half of the second game
Those hot dogs were god’s gift to baseball lovers
You wouldn’t eat when things were happening you
Didn’t want to miss the contact with the warm tube
The mustard glorious or the roll firm
Somewhere in the 60’s I was involved in other games
By then I saw a documentary on the making of
Hot dogs didn’t touch them for six months
Still like one every now and then but
It has to be outside somehow sidewalk street
Back yard sky clouds maybe rain
It’s the shape I know it’s the shape
Feel that shape imagine it King seek the Queen
Hit a home run.
If the Moon’s spit thickens the Sun’s light
Heat striking out no baseball here heat
Lifting the sound of the roast three rib
Roast garlic pinched into all the little
Knife slits
Worship going down with Bombay gin martinis
Aroma making us mad making us lust for stuff
We never knew existed lust on the cuffs hands
On fire
Now the gods relent and the form is before us
No need to chew
Tongues press towards rooves of mouths
Juice out dribbling down chins
The Great Dissolve begins
How can it be so tender how is that
Is the meat so tender cause we can’t be
Do we raise the meat to get away from home
Get away from the tenderness that lurks within
You have a rondel I have a pipe should we
Bring them together we’ll be happy with tripe
But as it is the meat has let us down
You have the wagon I have the crown.
VI
We used to kid with the cook in the army kitchen
In Japan he had the face of an armless boxer
He came from Brooklyn’s Red Hook or was it
Red Hill one of us from upper Manhattan knew
His scene so it all clicked
I said once too often that there was never
Enough bacon when bacon was served he closed one
Eye one day reared back put his fist in my face
This was after supper as we gabbed over coffee
Fist an inch from my nose
He screamed Tomorrow youse don’t eat nothing no
Breakfast no lunch no dinner either youse come
Here knock on the door at 1805 that’s 5 after 6
Two friends came with me to see what was going on
Cook lets us in he’s got a table set the place is
Empty then after we sit down he brings over a
Serving pan with he says six pounds of perfectly
Cooked bacon Now youse eat & he banged that fist
On the table & the pan of bacon jumped
I did more than twenty pieces of bread butter
Handful of bacon inside then I dropped the bread
I think I did close to five pounds this went on
For a couple of hours hey I’m no pig but the
God of pigs has musical thighs tunes you’ll never
Hear unless you do with bacon as I did
I couldn’t bear the sight of the stuff for over a
Week then the desire dropped back in no desire
Goes completely away ever anywhere I was happy
Though for two or three pieces & that’s lasted.
VII
My lion is lyin’ asleep
In my loin a miracle
Since my loin’s alive
Or close to it or my
Lion’s alive well I know
He is why the confusion
What’s close to alive
See the sausages on the
Ends of fencing foils
Stuck down into the ashes
Around the smouldering pile
Of cuttings burnt down after
A day of logsplitting
The dark overwhelming us
Heading west over the Pacific
Just below
Glowing sausage misting
Jug of wine essence of pine
Hydraulic woodsplitter & unless
You’ve been there you can’t conceive
How many piles of 3-foot logs
Stack up in say 10 hours
We have enough sausages & wine
For an army of a dozen shit for a
Dozen armies
We’ve several hours to go
Firewatching
Before we can leave
When wine and sausages are gone
We’ll be able to kiss the Pacific
Wherever the dawn is.
VIII
Brisket day at Tara’s Grandmother’s
Seven or eight of us enough brisket &
Other stuff for thirty or more
Horse radish brandy potatoes you could marry
Platter of brisket is never empty no matter
How many forays with the fork
The secret some say is to let it sit in
Its own juice in the icebox over night
The brisket golem comes then & blesses
So very soft so tender you can chew for
Diversion but no need the more brandy the
More sliding down tongue press juice gorge
It’s the gorging there’s no satiation no
End to anything it keeps on coming keeps on
Going down another one more one last chance
The evening’s closed with a prayer to Meat
More prayers to the ends of everything
Where are the answering voices where are
My genitals as I try to stand to pee the
Belly sticks out so far that I can’t see them
I try to assume they understand.
IX
I was on a search for the cumin
A crisis with screams took the scent
From my head
I wanted a rainmaker I wanted to
Cook a meal for a hundred people
Smoked sausages dancing in a frenzy
Succulent soldiers heading for the
Cunt of the goddess no sharing none
Now the damn things are fighting with
One another I try to slice them on the
Board but they won’t obey
You want a sausage to obey you’ve got to
Give it little eyes with a couple of cloves
Make it a tiny hat out of some vegetable
Take it to bed with you for a night let it
Ride around in your pocket for a while
Is it the suppressed desire to mouth
Male organs whatever sex you claim or
Wave a flag for
Is it that desire that makes those platters
Full those tables rocking with the weight of
Aromatic phallic objects of is it art
After all where do you think the first
Sausage makers got the idea for the form.
X
I seem to recall that somewhere someone said
Give us this day our Supersubstantial Bread not
Daily bread as we’ve been led to believe
Not a begging for food but a request for more
Awareness
Does change the thing a bit
What I want since awareness comes and goes
(Its full coming is orgasmic I’ll tell you)
What I want is supersubstantial meat
Meat that’s so much more meat that opens the
Doors one half of a sausage and you’re spurting
Joy resting on elbows on a high sill free of the
Need to finish the whole damn plate
Such meat must come from a wise animal one who’s
Gone from two feet to four a number of times
Constantly asking for more consciousness not a
Handout or paw out or hoof out
How many breasts has a pig
I want to meet conscious meat I want to dance it
Down I want to take its flavor & avoid its form
I want the ending of the old miracle and the
Beginning of the new one
All at once.
XI
There’s a Pot Roast & a Rack of Lamb
You kiss the lips of the Animal Gods
When you hit the Second Bardo or one
Of them we eat those burgers way into
The night we flounder we make love
Poorly if at all we suffer the nightmare
Named Nightsoil
You’ll agree to fuck the solid toilet
If you can feel just a little better
You rub some of your parts against the
Lower cool you heave & grab your tum
You think of the bacon in the ice box
The Whole Group comes together on this
Walls fend them off some sleep others
Wander away the ones who remain forget
To flush Night Soil fills the space a
Dream in reverse a call to the plumber at
Five in the morning one grabs a mirror
Holds it just so & sees the image of his
Night soil as it descends sound of flush
Makes him forget
Night soil in the garden of delights
Lying naked right on top with lover
Moisture hovering scent of skunk or a
Thing beyond black & white odor of anything
That comes out of us or goes in odor of
Nightsoil to remind us of our being.
XII
A Friday night when people always came
Over & we bought a huge steak enough for
An army & had it just right & waited as
Long as we could but no one came so we
Ate the whole thing ourselves
The next morning we both felt heavier than
Ever & while I was on the pot my body
Grabbed me by some part & said You’re 43
Now you can keep it up with the meat or the
Booze but we don’t do well trying to process
Both
It was at that moment I realized I was a
Meataholic oh my god let me get my hands on
That horse’s dick that cow’s ribs that
Chicken’s wings & sausages perhaps it was
Perhaps it is their shapes after all the
Sausage seems to be a detached phallus
Though some feel all phalli are somehow
Detached
So I knew where I was & I went for 3 years
Eating no meat at all no fish no nuthin
After that I went off the wagon a bit
But I know how I feel after only a meatball
So I fruit & juice & pasta most of the time
The Great Danger since I eat very little
Before dark save a bit of fruit & tea Is
Getting stoned in the evening in the presence of
Plates of sausages piles of chicken et cetera
That’s when I come the closest so far
To Death.
XIII
The endless pursuit of getting the
Stomach filled has something to do
I’ve said before with wanting to
Mouth the male organ maybe just
Organs in general in private
Whatever
Saturn’s eating his children may have
Set the code for all the rest of us
Find the images on this Goya’s is
One of the best stuffing them in
Like there’s no tomorrow
Perhaps I opted to stuff in the
Sausages the fried chicken the brisket &
On & on from before the mouth to an end
Of the environment that’s what I said
An end of the environment
When that happens no one’ll have to
Eat anything
Tongue will come into its own
Belly will be clear & able to direct
The other smaller organs
The asshole will not be free of duty
It will sing & bring us to ourselves
You want freedom
You had better touch yourself
Lots more than you do now
How much meat is really there.
XIV
Does the insignificance of the individual
Make you happy
What of the insignificance of one sausage
All the sausages in the world
All the people
Who can be part of either group
You don’t think sausages have a group
How many of them have you eaten how many
People have you eaten
Put a sausage in your mouth a fist
Up your ass well maybe a finger
The chakras in your middle may take over
Somewhere in Europe there are women sitting
At tables cleaning out intestines to be put
Into jars for people here who won’t do that
I salute the sausage I fondle it I dance
I see it in my dreams I’ll take the chance
For the ultimate death in the pan.
pacobooks 