2 Poems by Bruce McRae

Chef Recommends The Famine


That's my heart they're serving up

on a plate. And it's medium-rare.

That's my little spunk-rat heart

they're dishing out; delightfully saucy,

basting in its own juices, piping hot.

I'm on the menu; it's a secret family

recipe going back for generations.

"A hint of cloves and a touch of garlic,

that's what the thing tastes of to me,"

that's what the thin girl says to the fat man,

she playing with her food between sighs,

he snapping his fingers at the waiter.

"Garçon! Another bottle of your finest,"
he says, she pushing her dinner aside.


Flyleaf


Everywhere the great poets are dying,

dropping like hints before a birthday,

like the mercury in a Siberian thermometer,

like concrete slabs from a highway overpass;

dropping like trousers at a military medical exam

or names among celebrities.

As if a bar of soap in a prison's showers.

Falling like a meth addict's IQ, or a castle wall.

Like the value of a pre-war mark.

Falling like Fat Boy over Hiroshima.

Like the scented gloves of courtesans.

Everywhere the great poets are falling,

as if a book from a hand to the bedroom floor,

its pages creased, the author sleeping.


Bionote

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press), An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy (Cawing Crow Press) and Like As If (Pskis Porch), all available via Amazon.