Sunday, March 13, 2011

marked consumption


the stockyards
have been shut down
for decades,
stench

of
dead flesh lingers
for marked consumption, or
decay

Pan yields to flawed
abilities
in quickening a body's,
renaissance

concedes, instrument
to a
younger god

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Stop Poetry - One Shoot Sunday, Photographer Fee Easton

15 comments:

  1. Bespeaks of spiritual decay and the demise of simpler times. The Pan reference is very revealing and adds depth being a god to flocks and tunes. Great Challenge Response, bkm!

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  2. Only you could see those smokes as the twisted pipes of Pan, my friend. Solid write, full of uncomfortable insight and fine description.

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  3. agh - tight and "uncomfortable" write

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  4. As others have noted, the reference to poor disheveled Pan's "flawed" pipe is frickin' brilliant! "Dead flesh lingers" speaks volumes in this tight, compressed write. I can almost smell the stink of it here. While all things must concede to time and to what is younger, I think it's that lingering that makes me most uncomfortable. Fantastic write, bkm!

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  5. nice...how far we have fallen...love the pan/renaissance line...

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  6. we are drifting toward decay...interesting take for certain

    Peace, hp

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  7. I love it that you take such direct aim without having to directly victimize this poor girl ... she's taken such a beating today in the Challenge -- Yet you manage a deeper sort of violence. I didn't quite get the Pan-pipes in the three cigarettes as much as symbolic of the corruption of nature that's become a blackly divine rite of our human ways. "Quickening" as a rush to death in service to the "younger god" of addiction. Hastening life toward death through it is a perversion of the vices of Pan, indulgence which brought life. If I missed it all, apologies, the insights are just flora of a fascinating poem's plural truths. - Brendan

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  8. I like what you did here. The picture suggest decay, but also something else, a response to decay. And your poem catches that. Good one.

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  9. This poem makes me think back to the days of pestilince and disease on UK shores. All those bodies dead. Great work here Barbara x

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  10. Barb, oh, that is nice and so eloquently expressed.

    Pamela

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  11. A haunting poem! words are carefully chosen to express them in an amazing way possible

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  12. As time makes way for new gods, so too will it make way for new addictions. To me, if I may be so bold, (not normally!) this speaks to our neverending cycle of self-destruction. far from a victim, our girl has stepped up, despite knowing how it will all end. While I agree that there is that element of being left feeling uncomfortable, I think this also points to great bravery.

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  13. Harsh. But the image of Pan is brilliant!

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  14. Wow! A very heavy piece, but you told it in such a way that there's a kind of strange elegance in the situation and I still feel a bit of hope, too.

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  15. One of the most original takes on the photo I've read thus far - superb work!

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