Lunchtime with the Gods

a poem about gods and food.

The lonesome sardine darted through the calm ocean as the midday 

sun made the sardine glow like a knife made from stainless steel.

26 seconds latter the sardine is caught by an old Greek man

 with a big grey moustache. He guts and descales the

 fish; he cuts out two shiny fillets, wipes

 the knife on his dirty trousers 

and then chucks the carcass 

of the sardine back to

 where it  was 

born.

As the old man chews on the raw oily fish, the ferocious heat from the sun continues to stream down on to the small boat. The heat was so intense that the man felt like he was being pricked by a thousand and one tiny needles, while buckets of liquid metal was being poured over his shoulders.

The fish tasted of a mix of life and death combined. He then takes a piece 

of crusty bread in his hand and dips it into a small bowl of 

extra virgin olive oil; the bread soaks up the

 golden green liquid. The man happily 

eats his fish, bread and 

oil with a glow of 

radiance beaming

 form his 

eyes.

Poseidon sits content in his underwater cave. The walls are covered with hundreds of silver pearls; an eerie milky light penetrates out from the entrance of the cave and dissolves into the dark void of the ocean. Poseidon chews on slimy dark green kelp and scoops out saffron coloured sea urchins out of their shells with his index finger. The taste of iodine erupts onto his tongue as he swallows the sea urchins. Hundreds of plankton swim through his long wavy hair, a small 

crab crawls out of his right nostril. Poseidon looks up at old fishing 

boat floating on the still surface of the sea.

Small sweat droplets occasionally fell from the old 

mans bushy eyebrows like pinecones descending

 from their branches. One sweat droplet looked

 like a huge teardrop as it leisurely rolled 

down the man’s neck and melted

 into his hairy grey

  chest.

He grabbed a bottle of red wine from under the shade of his seat and 

drank the cool, tart liquid with joy and contentment. He put 

the bottle down and stroked his brittle moustache with his

 index finger and thumb. He then wiped his 

wet forehead with the back of his hand

 and with an expression of curiosity

 spread across his face he gazes

  into the bright blue-sky 

overhead.

Zeus looks down at the old man in the fishing boat while crunching on pomegranate seeds. Zeus then wipes the red juices away from his mouth, picks up a chalice full of frothy beer and swallows the golden liquid in one go. Zeus picks a few black grapes from a vine dangling over his shoulder, he then combs his longs sliver beard very slowly with delicate oyster shells.

The old Greek man dabbed his golden baldhead 

with a napkin while the skeleton of 

the sardine slowly floats

 down towards the 

seabed like a

 lost feather

 never to

 be seen

 again.

Reviews

[TawnyBlueStar]

This is wonderful! The mix of man and gods :) and the description is so creative that I could picture it playing out in front of me - which is brilliant, and what makes me love stories and poems that are able to do that :D
As always, I love reading your work. thank you for sharing this, amazing! :D

[Larry Dyson]

very flowingly dissonant and descriptive piece..very pungent write..
could have titled it sushi in a rowboat

[Coyote Poetry]

I like the logic of the poem. God's and men are the same in some ways. I like the compete story. Description took me to the sea. I could see the carving of the fish to the God's enjoying their meal. Thank you for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote