Egg Poetry: A Plate of Scrambled Eggs by Roy Mash

In a crowded East Bay kitchen, I met Roy Mash as we sipped sparkling water before the start of a poetry reading. We began talking about the intersections between food and poetry and he mentioned he had written a bit of food poetry, especially one about eggs. Intrigued, I proceeded to devour the food poem shortly after it hit my inbox.  So, with Mash’s permission, I give you, “A Plate of Scrambled Eggs.” Next  time you are whisking eggs to scramble, it might make you look at breakfast differently.

A Plate of Scrambled Eggs

by Roy Mash

 

Attila Me surveys

the battlefield’s pastel

upholstery from here

on high, and salivates,

imagining how grand,

how glorious to slash

the spineless masses through.

Take that! And that! You shreds!

You mangled carcasses,

you bundled, beaten goo.

 

The once exquisite yolks

are rumpled luggage now,

spreadeagled spongy flesh

I pummel with my tongue,

the battered yellow pads

like mud squished from a fist.

The cushion of a throat

submits like this, or would

were Jack the Ripper Me

arisen from the mist.

 

A good thing he’s not. Else

these docile clouds defiled

with ravishment might well

belie the dignity

of that One True God: Me,

who sharpens even yet

his appetite among

the bright utensils

in the quiet kitchenette.

 

This poem first appeared in The Evansville Review

ROY MASH

Roy Mash is a long time member of Marin Poetry Center. He holds degrees in English, Philosophy, and Computer Science, though he currently doodles his time away staring out of café windows, dabbing up the seeds that have fallen from an everything bagel, and mentally thumbing over his poems that have appeared widely in journals such as AGNI, Barrow Street,  Nimrod, Poetry East, and River Styx. He is the recipient of the Atlanta Review International Publication Award. His first full length book, Buyer’s Remorse (Cherry Grove Collections), debuted in 2014.