Delicious poison

For what’s existence but a burden to be borne?
A task that the servants are ordered to perform
While the master is away, off-stage, unseen,
Entrusting to our senses shared reality:
A big black sticky lump that looks good to eat;
Life is the delicious poison that you let it be –

And what’s oblivion but the warming hearth of home?
A condition in which no one can be alone,
Nor influence the interaction between
Their matter and the matters of their kinsfolkmote,
Nor indeed replace their own bonemealy meat;
Whatever your poison, death is its bland antidote.

Appears in:
The misery tune [2018]

Notes:
Although I had the idea for the poem when I thought of the title, after Googling it I found a Japanese Kyōgen play with the same name, which the subsequent reading of then infiltrated the poem.

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