Ode to Spam

                                      by Charlie Johnston



                              Oh SPAM!  Oh SPAM!  Gourmet delight!
                               My food by day, my dreams by night.
                              To carve, to slice, to dice you up -
                           pureed in a blender and sipped from a cup.

                              What shining deity from Olympus knelt
                              down to the earth and hog butt smelt?
                               Creating then man's eternal desire
                              for swine entrails congealed by fire.

                             On some corporate farm, a pig has died.
                              Eyes, tongue, and snout end up inside
                               that cube of SPAM hidden in the can
                                I now hold in my trembling hand.

                               More than mere food, SPAM is for me
                           a hedonistic expression of gluttonous glee.
                         Mottled with pork fat, the pink cube engrosses.
                          My mouth takes it in, my intestine disposes.

                           Long have my arteries clogged to the sound
                          of sizzling SPAM when there's no one around -
                             furtively chewing or swallowing whole.
                            Triple bypass by forty, my medical goal.

                      Other processed meat products I've tried or declined
                        Vienna Sausages, Treet, even pig's feet in brine.
                           Though each may be tasty in different ways,
                             none matches SPAM for gelatinous glaze.

                               That glistening pinkness beckons me
                                   with gristle, fat, and BHT.
                            Oh Spam, my Spam - the taste, the smell -
                              The sacred meat product from Hormel.