Guts (poem)

Guts

Gutted, crushed, broken, dead

Commenters are

Dead at the bloated cow’s recurring news

Referenced in times its demise seemed only augured

News of a weight too light to break

News burst upon you, in a sidling way, demanding

Almost all are cause-of-death-revealed

all the click-throughs warning you

that clogs gnashed by the works are flying

You won’t feel stirred by a star of 80s TV

but you will feel a last chance dies each year

On social media you want your stance so clear

Don’t pile on me, I have loved to pieces every touchstone

Hopes that you yourself don’t need

if in old age your home and hearth stand sheltered

But pediments too crushing to shoulder as an atlas

if in old age you are driven to heathen street life

Heathen

Hope meant a lot, the chief hawk, the chief draw

Who sits in a church enjoying arcana with begging added?

A kindly god who loves you, or his son who loves you too

But is not a god

Can’t/won’t stop the torture, the decay

What then, to this open bowel dribbling consumed effluvia

do you pray?

guts

skyward

(2025, Stephanie Foster)