Porkopolis

Pig Song

• Si yo creyera que mi repuesta sería
• a persona que pudiera hablar con el agricultor,
• este cerdito nunca más charlaría;
• pero, porque tu no puedes convencerle de
• que un cerdo ha hablado contigo,
• voy a decite unas cosas en confianza.
•  
• — Juan Valdez de Santa Toledo

•  
• Let us go then, you and I,
• where the field yields to the sty
• like a “See Rock City” poster on a stable;
• let us go through certain half–erected roosts
• where some ducklings or a goose
• speaks of sleepless nights in one–perch cheep chicken pens
• and barnyards swept with sins;
• roosts that reek with stale fowl smell
• and birds pell mell
• that make you want to yell some swelling question…
• come on, now, ask me, “What is it?”
• No?… well, let’s take a walk.
•  
• In the sty they come and go
• speaking of the rodeo.
•  
• The moist hay odor drifts along the gutters,
• the green smell that steps up and mutters,
• licks my back in the corners where it itches,
• lingers among the trough and sputters,
• passes through the farmer’s kitchen who,
• thinking his wife fast asleep at last,
• reads lewd magazines to escape her bitching.
•  
• And indeed there will be time
• to tell you of the smell that glides along the grass
• and drifts along the gutters;
• There will be time, there will be time
• to make a squeak to greet the squealers I will meet;
• and time for all the playful things
• with all the luscious treats to swallow;
• time for you and time for me,
• and time yet for a hundred incisions
• and for a hundred divisions
• and being served with toast and tea.
•  
• In the sty they come and go
• speaking of the rodeo.
•  
• And indeed there will be time
• to blurt out, “Eat a peach!” or “Eat a pear!”
• Time to slide into the mud kersplat
• like falling in a jello vat.
• (The roosters will say, “My, his legs are getting fat!”)
•  
• My double chin, my rounding rump
• my shoulders bulging in a clump
• (The ducks will mutter, “But how his belly is getting plump!”)
• Do I dare
• Get up from the mud?
• In a minute there is time
• a for incisions and divisions to make a ham of stud.
•  
• No! I am not a fierce wild boar, nor was meant to be;
• am an old stud hog, one that will do
• to swell a sow, start a litter or two,
• no doubt with an easy tool,
• deferential, glad to be of use,
• chubby, stout, ridiculous,
• full of pounds, but a bit obtuse;
• at times, indeed, almost obscene —
• almost, at times, a piggy bank.
•  
• I grow round… I grow round…
• I shall be measured pound for pound.
•  
• Shall I venture to the trough, do I dare to stuff with starches?
• I shall dine on low–cal tubers and go on diet marches.
• I have heard the farmers talking each to each.
• I hope they will not come for me.
• I have seen them riding their large white mares,
• combing the white–haired mane for the fair
• where the judges weigh and then compare.
•  
• We have lingered in the corners of the pen,
• amid the mire, slime, and swill strewn through the sty
• Till human voices “So o o o ey!” and we die.

Pig Thoughts at Noon

• a vegetarian stroked at noon behind my ears
• mumbled about my being bred for death (his pun),
• but his thoughts were elsewhere
•  
• among feathers, furs,
• rare flaming symmetry
• and outspread wings, not me;
•  
• for though my soul dwells beyond swift stallions
• and above the tree–couched cat
• I am groomed for termination
• and no one mourns my passing.
•  
• He means well, I suppose —
• my friend the vegetarian —
• but when he tries to find comparisons for me
• his mind wanders to the puma, the cheetah, the jaguar
• (the sum of whose lifetime thoughts
• I could formulate on one hoof);
•  
• socratically he tries to penetrate
• my crude surfaces
• but is stopped by the shadows of things:
•  
• he cannot caress my short hair, bulk, snout,
• cannot remove himself from reflexive imagery —
• the stuck pig still squeals
• no pearls are cast before me
• I am symbol for greed and
• things remote from godliness
• forbidden as vile to some
• but devoured at every part
• feet, brains, joints, entrails.
•  
• So it is that I
• become each of you
• and am your metaphor —
• what you seek as you peek behind the surfaces,
• for who has sensed the nobility in my pig heart
• and has caught the glint in my eyes
• can ponder the beginning of the universe
• and probe the heart of man.