DISCLAIMER: Here’s a quick disclaimer, lest I seem more morbid than I actually am—the subject matter is not to be taken literally. I do not condone cannibalism in ANY way, nor do I believe that it is a solution to poverty. There is no intention to offend anyone. It is merely my 22-year-old self’s poor attempt at satire and my first go at creating a villanelle. That being said, on with the show.

 

How to Carve a Roast Baby.

By Kristel Marie Pujanes 

Everyone is a secret-sadist butcher;

Craving for little carvings of baby on a platter.

(If it’s below three, I don’t consider it murder.)

Mothers are natural meat carvers,

Trained from teen years to pierce flesh with a skewer,

Everyone is a secret-sadist butcher.

Grilled baby’s meat is always succulent and tender,

It drips with gravy, to keep separate in a saucer.

(If it’s below three, I don’t consider it murder.)

The only way to check if it’s dead is with an iron poker,

To gouge soup eyes and serve on a dish made of pewter.

Everyone is a secret-sadist butcher.

 

I checked for bones under my mother’s bed of flowers,

To see if I had there a family of little brothers.

(If it’s below three, I don’t consider it murder.)

Large families grow poor, until they make life better,

But to cook a few babies shouldn’t be quite a disaster.

Everyone’s a secret-sadist butcher.

(If it’s below three, I don’t consider it murder.)

(2008)

 

Villanelle defined: A villanelle, also known as a villanesque, is a poetic form that consists of 19 lines. It contains five tercets followed by a quatrain. It normally follows an A-B-A rhyming sequence for the first five tercets, then the rhyming becomes A-B-A-A at the quatrain. There’s a refrain that’s repeated throughout the piece. The first and third lines of the first tercet is added alternatingly in the tercets and found complete at the last two lines of the quatrain.

 

First published in my old blog: http://theobliterated.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-carve-roast-baby.html