Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre; The Hamburger Cannot Hear the Helper

Things fall apart; the dinner cannot hold;

Mere ground beef is loosed upon the world,

The tasteless slop is served, and everywhere

The ceremony of deliciousness is drowned;

The best lack all flavor, while the worst

Are the fill of perturbed intestines.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Helping is at hand.

The Second Helping! Hardly are those words out

When a vast icon out of General Mills

Troubles my sight: somewhere in aisles of the supermarket

A shape with white glove body and the face of a man,

A gaze as fixed and saccharine as the Raisin Bran Sun,

Is moving its slow collar, while all about it

Swirl aromas of the indignant seasoning packets.

The darkness drops again; but now i know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a Giant Left Hand,

And what rough glove, it's hour come round at last,

Slouches towards the meat case to be born?