POEM TITLE Dining with Lobster, Bon Appétit!
POEM
‘We’re All Doomed’ boomed sign above entrance—for sure
for us lobsters now chittering in our chitin and about to boak
algae for this pub’s hoaching with famished carnivorous folk.
Ach, a wee while back, in icy swell off Blackness-on-sea,
I, homarus gammarus, was braw “Hielan' Laddie” in bright
blue shell but now steaming from ‘The Lobster Pot’ kitchen,
disgustingly red, unstable and surly on plate coz a dumbbell
(probably ginger man or rubbered woman
now looming over me as they chair table)
ladled out a braw bawbee for my rarity. Worse is I’m now
Greek (‘Thermidor’), and through pique recalling J-pop song
of that title whining on about pining human doing bunk
when focus of love changed for my lust focus just got plunked
on next table and likewise disgustingly red.
Gnash of teeth in tummy behind my eyes for coz of her caught
when octopus migrating to hotting North Sea began chasing me.
(Not Kraken but hey, still nasty beak and suckers)
Smitten, I grabbed cruel creel, and soon in ‘eightsome-reel’
with “eight-arms”, climaxing with both of us tangled.
Currently he’s in pub’s freezer right nervy, awaiting some
#geezer’s chopping, rolling in oil and lemon, frying in griddle
or maybe geezer will vinegar-blanch, slow-bake. Aye, my fate
sealed when I smelled her in creel emitting pheromone to say
she was in the moult and mood. Still, someone will enjoy her
even if I didn’t get to for as “shedder” she’s very juicy.
Shame never caught her striptease; such a kinky wee female
casting off sexy corset (shell you think only exists to be cracked).
Blast being red! Being blue was pure dead brilliant and hue
Ancient Picts, who used to nude it around here, used to tattoo.
However, Tory vibes in blue painful for I’m SNP,
dealing with sorrow only one in thirty million of us yellow.
Rubbered woman’s sniffing me. Well, I do smell so yummy
could put myself in my tummy. But not into self-cannibalism
despite you lot saying we are coz we gobble our shed skin.
Aren’t you mammals a right lot? Well, some of you thought so.
For starters (or main course) Hannibal Lecter, culinary master,
turned out ‘Tandoori Liver & thigh baked in clay with marrow’,
and cannibal Armin Meiwes who likened you to pork whipped up
human steak in green pepper sauce with Brussels sprouts:
part of your 5-a-day plan. Glimpsed healthy menu on way in:
tags of GF, VE and V and if ‘suggestions box’, I’ll pop in
“for f***’s sake stick to beef”,
propose ‘LF’ (Lobster Free) by all dishes.
Lull as you wield crackers, picks, but revulsion’s surfacing
for you’re chewing inside your faces.
“Do they really scream when being boiled?”
—rubbered woman, brandishing one of my claws.
Fool, I’ve no vocal chords. Merely trapped air in my belly,
and that crackly noise some of us make—legs-together rubbing
you’ve likened to a shrill violin sound but tonight and here
only orchestrated crunching, munching. I wail a prayer
as ginger man spreads truffled mayonnaise over my tail.
‘Did this lobster just wail?’—rubbered woman
‘Wailing crustaceans only in Disney movies, dear.’—ginger man
‘We’re dining like royalty.’—rubbered woman
Aye, devour me, ignoramuses, with kingly and queenly gnashers
but long-ago only paupers wolfed us, and sometimes pigs whose
DNA 98% similar to you, and such a shared kerfuffle for truffles.
So, you pigs now having tête-à-tête over ‘Belhaven Best’,
burping, cracking lobster jokes:
“A lobster answers the phone with “shello”—rubbered woman.
“What about Sean Connery with
Her Majeshty’s Shecret Shervice?”—me (unheard).
Rubbered woman’s looking into my boiled eyes.
‘He’ll never see again.’
‘Nor speak.”—ginger man
Idiot, we squirt pee from our faces (luckily for you not faeces)
sort of talk in urine—crustacean equivalent of ‘in your Facebook’.
Sigh, fast food chain McDonald’s lobster-experimenting.
Naw! Naw! Naw! Possible food fad feeding frenzy driving
us to brink of extinction. Still, some of you empathetic:
truck ferrying four thousand of us crashed in Maine,
and monument memorializing ensuing slaughter inscribed
“In Memory of the Lobsters Who Suffered and Died
at This Spot, August 2018”. Ya dancers!
Almost gone physically and mentally but holding thought might
be useful after passing on: my shell recycled as golf ball core.
One day a wee bit of me bouncing on St. Andrew’s Links in glee?
Know about lobster claws in sky? Naw? Well, two of Greek
race of wise centaurs swanked heads crowned with our claws.
(Now more at ease with being Greek)
So, when staggering tanked from this cool pub, glance up at starry
vault, locate Pisces for there our claws will be, safe for eternity.
Blackness-on-sea on an eve you’ll no longer spy me by rock pool
for I’ll be floating ‘in the salt’, depending on when you ate me.
Bon appétit!
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