ISLAND

A magazine of excellence and variety

 

ISSN 1035-3127

We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.

ISSUE NO. 108

AUTUMN 2007

POETRY

Meat Matters

Andy Kissane

 

Forequarter Chops
You are routine.
Growing up
we ate you
every Tuesday night
along with mashed potatoes,
mint peas and diced carrots.

Now there’s chump, loin and cutlets
for competition.
But back then
there was only
the ubiquitous forequarter –
burnt black
and dried out
under the gorilla.

Now I eat you
any night of the week,
barbecued, rare:
white bread soaks up the blood
and my teeth bite down
on a new idea of order.

Lamb’s Fry & Bacon
You two go together
like Lillee & Thompson;
Simon & Garfunkel;
Starsky & Hutch.

After escaping
the hungry stare
of Leopold Bloom’s cat,
the offal seems glad
to be sizzling in the pan;
the bacon crackles and bursts
like a drum solo.

Taken on your own
you’re just OK –
like school –
but eaten together
you become
a woman in a ball gown,
a slipper that fits,
a fairytale ending.

The Humble Sausage

I wandered lonely as a sausage
Without a slice of bread...

           *

Shall I compare thee to a bratwurst roll?
One whiff of garlic and I lose control...

           *

Sausage! Sausage! Flaming bright
On this sticky, summer night.
Your casing gapes; your insides burst —
If only I’d parboiled you first.

           *

so much depends
upon

a red frank-
furt

squirted with tomato
sauce

lying in a
roll.

           *

I will arise and go now, and go to the charcuterie.
Nine varieties they have there, of beef and lamb and pork.
I shall buy a dozen each – what joy, what glee
to see them browning in the pan, to pierce them with a fork.

           *

In the room the women come and go
Munching on Cotechino.

           *

But I see nothing, nothing... only sausages.
Five sausages. Five sausages in a tray.

           *

Byron loved his mortadella
as much as any other fella.

           *

Call me Chorizo.

---

ANDY KISSANE recently won the inaugural BTG – Blue Dog Poetry Reviewing Competition for his review of Dennis McDermott’s book, Dorothy’s Skin. His latest poetry collection is Every Night They Dance (Five Islands Press, 2000).

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Last modified: 5 October, 2007
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