The Glutton (Poetry)

Flushed with wine and expectation, knife and fork in readiness,
he sat before a table laid for one,
while the waiter poured their best House Red and watched each gulp progress
as it rolled around Sir Percy’s eager tongue.

A steaming bowl of oxtail soup with half a loaf of bread
was followed by two steak and kidney pies,
their pastry thick and crusty, crammed with meat so rich, dark red
that it colour-matched the diner’s bloodshot eyes.

Side dishes piled with vegetables - potatoes, sprouts and peas,
boiled cabbage, broccoli and runner beans -
all devoured by the plateful, just a passing grunt and wheeze
and a pause to mop the perspiration streams.

Poultry, roasted, stuffed and plump: three fat chickens and a duck -
he slapped his lips and gave a windy cough,
rolled up his food-stained silken sleeves, burping as he stuck
both front trotters in his Royal Worcester trough.

Thick, greasy gravy dribbled down his waistcoat from his chin,
as he tore the flesh from drumstick, wing and breast,
and he worried at each carcass - ate the gristle and the skin -
‘til only the bare skeletons were left.

The fish course: Lobster Thermidor with oysters, prawns and crab,
and buttered kipper fillets by the shoal,
revived his flagging appetite - he made a drunken grab,
and missed the crab but ate the lobster whole.

Sir Percy gobbled, slurped and squealed, the maître d’ walked in
with a tray of something succulent and hot,
the glutton’s eyes went out on stalks, he gave a ghastly grin
at a suckling pig - then passed out on the spot.

One pig lay on the table, the other on the floor,
with the ruins of the feast strewn round about,
and when the peace and quiet was broken by Sir Percy’s porcine snore
the waiter stuffed an apple in his snout.