POEM: Feed Me

Gotta eat to live
Gotta read to write
How do people THINK without reading?

I feel like a baby bird
beak stretched open wide
waiting for a worm

Like a suckling newborn
seeking milk
wondering why it is now outside its mother
now taking as much of its mother into itself as it can

Like a ravenous dog
a lumbering, slobbering Mastiff or St. Bernard,
slopping up raw hamburger and eggs from its dish
on the floor in the corner of the family kitchen
licking and slurping and lapping
wanting more, always more

Some greasy Hemingway
Some grainy Steinbeck

Savory salad with lots of garlic,
that's Vonnegut

A pitcher of ice cold ppilsner,
that's Robert B. Parker

Some James Patterson French Fries
Fried Grisham and Crieghton

Cut into thick, medium rare Viktor Frankl

St. Paul and St. John are merlot and cabernet

George Orwell is a little like oysters on the half shell,
should I sprinkle them with Robert Bly's lemon pepper?
Or have it on a bed of Nikki Giovani's mustard greens?
Perhaps a dash of red hot Henry Miller?

Warm pots of William Carlos Williams and Carl Sandburg Garrison Keillor are brewing for later.

A slice of Jean Shepherd pie to go with that?
Or Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, and Mark Twain?

I can't decide between the Mike Royko or the Molly Ivins.
Maybe some H.L. Melkin on rye.
No! J.D. Salinger on rye and a side of Richard Kinsella.

Some Hunter S. Thompson, but put it on ice,
just a splash of Jimmy Buffet, now that would be nice.

Where did I put that Flannery O'Connor?
It must be on the shelf with the Fannie Flagg.

I think I spilled some Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee on the Harper Lee.

No thank you, I'll pass on the Jane Austin,
I'm still finishing my Richard Hooker

I don't think I could handle another bite of Bradbury, Asimov or Roddenberry

Oh but for some more Doctor King!
if only the whole world would consume more Doctor King
perhaps there'd  be less indigestion.

Gotta read to think
Gotta eat to live
Call me a glutton,
I just can't get enough