I attended a creative writing workshop this past Wednesday, and this poem came over me after staring at a rather morbid picture prompt:
By the spread of the table
And the thorn on my chair
The clawing of conscience
I do not dare
Partake of this grisly feast,
This ghoulish delight;
To say that I’m willing
‘Twould fill me with fright.
Man is not useless;
Man is not wrong;
The part of my soul
That objects is long gone.
The thoughts that knock once.
The fear that rings twice.
I break way the ties
That bid me do right.
To jump, to leap off this spread:
Hope’s in my breast
And it’s long since been dead.
Beth Overmyer 