Shapiro, Alan

United States, (b. 1952)

LIFE PIG

  1. The hams the hocks the oddly delicate
  2. little busy trotters
  3. dug in and pushing forward through the already grunted through
  4. wet stink of what’s been rooted up and chewed and
  5. gobbled down to be shit
  6. out in clumps and dribbles to be again ploughed
  7. through like a harrow back
  8. and forth across the pen for more and still more
  9. scraps shreds fumes bacterial hints of fumes to feed on
  10. so the hunger can keep feeding till
  11. at last the head lifts up
  12. defiant nostrils pulsing wide
  13. as if to suck in the even bigger pig of sun
  14. which as it eats is glistening
  15. inside the darkest beads and beadlets hanging from
  16. the tip of every bristle on the snout.

© Alan Shapiro. Life Pig. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press (2016).

THE PIG

  1. The 1950s of her dream persisted
  2. Into the 1960s,
  3. Confident at first,
  4.  
  5. Despite the first awakenings around it,
  6. Even a little smug,
  7. Unthreatened, but then as more and more awoke
  8.  
  9. It grew confused, mystified, furious,
  10. Retreating to a last redoubt-
  11. Part farce,
  12.  
  13. Part suicide mission-
  14. Of her wanting us
  15. Never to help her with what she did alone
  16.  
  17. While wanting everyone of us
  18. To see her do it every evening
  19. As her fork scraped uneaten scraps
  20.  
  21. Down the hole of the disposal
  22. That she called the pig
  23. And flipped the switch
  24.  
  25. To hear it churn
  26. All she’d done for us
  27. To nothing,
  28.  
  29. The dishes scoured and sparkling on the rack,
  30. The table scrubbed to chilly radiance,
  31. The floor swept,
  32.  
  33. She never wanting us, not once, not
  34. Ever, to help her do it,
  35. Not even on the nights she herself refused to do it,
  36.  
  37. Had had enough
  38. Already and would sit there
  39. At the bomb site of the table,
  40.  
  41. Cigarette burning down between her fingers,
  42. Untouched cup of coffee steaming
  43. Till it didn’t,
  44.  
  45. She wanting us to see her stare at nothing, see
  46. Her not care if we saw
  47. How she had gone away
  48.  
  49. Like food scraps down the pig
  50. Of nowhere we could follow
  51. Where the dream churned
  52.  
  53. On itself down through the void
  54. Of its persistence
  55. Among the wreckage all the waking up had wrought.

© Alan Shapiro. Life Pig. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press (2016).

DEATH HOG

  1. Maw of the breeding mud
  2. of the barnyard of the planet
  3. in a paradise of being fed
  4.  
  5. by bodies gobbling
  6. bodies while it wallows
  7. at the bottom of it all,
  8.  
  9. at all times belly up-
  10. deaf, dumb, and blind,
  11. a sinkhole
  12.  
  13. of a massive infinitesimal
  14. infant-sucking
  15. growing emptier
  16.  
  17. the more it fills, the more
  18. we fill it, squawking
  19. scratching pecking
  20.  
  21. at the dirt we sink into
  22. for any morsel of why,
  23. any gorgeous hogwash
  24.  
  25. of a crumb to prettify
  26. or hide or just prolong
  27. the sinking-too hungry
  28.  
  29. to find it, or to see how,
  30. when we do
  31. find it, swallowing
  32.  
  33. whole some notion
  34. that it’s the lion’s
  35. claw and tiger’s tooth
  36.  
  37. that have given
  38. the deer its grace
  39. and beauty and speed,
  40.  
  41. we sink the same, even
  42. as we swallow.
  43. Even then it feeds.

Editor’s Note:

In “Death Hog’ Shapiro notes that the sentence “it’s the lion’s claw and tiger’s tooth that have given the deer its grace and beauty and speed” is from
Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire (1968).

© Alan Shapiro. Life Pig. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press (2016).

About the Poet:

Alan Richard Shapiro, United States, (b. 1952), is a poet and educator. Since 1995, Shapiro has taught at the University of North Carolina, where he currently serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing.

Shapiro has published over ten books of poetry, most recently Life Pig (2016); Reel to Reel (2014), a finalist for the Pulizer Prize; Night of the Republic (2012), a finalist for the National Book Award and the Griffin Prize; and Old War (2008), winner of the Ambassador Book Award. In addition to poetry, he has also published two personal memoirs, Vigil and The Last Happy Occasion. [DES-11/19]