The sausage on my plate is rubbery and inoffensive
A clever likeness made of turkey meat
Not your tastiest breakfast fare yet not complete-
Ly unsuitable for consumption by the hypertensive.
My research on this topic hasn’t been extensive
But age and blood pressure require a retreat
From foods that I could once cavalierly eat
Without inflicting damage that might prove expensive.
Turkey sausage is the price of growing old—
As years increase so does the need to compromise
To dull our sharper joys with a dash of the bland.
Instead of calling life’s bluff you tamely fold
Startled into timidity by the bracing surmise
That nothing’s worked out quite the way you’d planned.
Don Carlson lives and works in North Central Texas, in the USA. His poems have appeared in Windhover, The Lost Country, The Pawn Review, Chronicles, and Poetry Dallas. In 2015, he collaborated on a volume of poetry with two friends and fellow poets, Timothy Donohue and Dennis Patrick Slattery. Their joint collection, Road Frame Window, was published by Mandorla Press. In addition, he recently published a collection of verse entitled Testimony: A Poetic Retelling of the Gospel According to John independently.
How about this poem…
METHUSELAH
Methuseluh ate what he found on his plate
And never, as people do now,
Did he note the amount of calorie count,
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn’t disturbed as at dinner he ate,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat
Or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Least his health might be hurt
By some fancy dessert;
And he lived over nine hundred years.
UNKNOWN
That may have been possible in the antediluvian world. Times have changed since the Great Flood! Besides, it’s highly possible that Methuselah never ate pork.
Donald, give me beef or pork, or give me death; or give me both and I’ll die happy. I’m glad you didn’t write about soybean products, for that would really have set me off.
You have to draw the line somewhere!
Turkey sausage is bad enough. But the evil vermin we really have to watch out for are the vegan fanatics. These scum are committed to forcing the entire planet to give up all meat and other animal products. And they have a lot of power.
People have a choice and we don’t treat our animals well as they move through the reduction process.
If we have a choice, then I choose to eat red meat, veal cutlets, and pate de foie gras. Got that, pal?
I have a solution to this conflict: From now on, everyone should eat vegans. I haven’t tried it yet, but we can be fairly sure that these animals were raised on a vegetable diet, just like beef and lamb. Let vegans be the new veal.
Those vegans will have to pry my turkey sausage from my cold, dead hand!