Toenail

 The blades of the Podiatrist’s

Toenail clippers close,

Detaching a chunk of yellow keratin

From the extremity of the body

On which it growed.

The surface of the Podiatrist’s

Toenail file rasps,

Removing little bits of dryskin

And more particles of keratin.

The edge of the Podiatrist’s

Sharp scalpel slices slivers

Of dead calloused toeskin.

And all this detritus,

The yellow keratin chunks,

The bits of dryskin,

And the calloused toeskin

Will be incinerated.

As will the body which generated it.

Atoms from the incinerations will

Float and merge universally

With water, with gases, with air,

With plants and fungus,

With birds and beasts

With rivers and seas.

And one day

On some planet somewhere

It will again grow

A toenail.

A truely free lunch

 

It is not an admission that,

I would ever have knowingly made,

Unless the information could be used,

As part of a trade.

I never give away any part of myself,

To anyone else,

Without some sort of return,

Immediate or, long-term,

Because I am

An economic man

Every single situation involves.

Expenditure and exchange.

We don’t always know it.

But we are always constrained.

Yet I never stop seeking the loophole,

Looking for the edge

Which will give me my

Pie in the sky

So, one day at last

I can sit on a cloud and munch,

That heavenly thing,

A truely free lunch.