The Hamburger Epic.. Poem by Marcus Lomboy

This is a tale of fallen soldiers
Armies of cheese, tomatoes, pickles and onions with beef in their holsters
This is the life of a cheeseburger
A war with the buns as the armed force servers

Then it starts…
A few cows slaughtered; then a field is harvested
Produce to produce soldiers that McDonald’s requested
Grains to the factory, veggies to the chop block
Meat to the factories away from other cows with the shellshock

The tomatoes bench pressing in the barracks
Then the weights fall down and then crush them into ketchup
The pickles jumping rope and get tripped
The rope keeps going – and they get sliced into strips

The onions working on the aircraft bombers
Then slip into the engines to the sadness of their mommas
Chopped into cubes by the spinning razor blades
The final condiment for the happy meal age

Heads of lettuce in the offices...
Working with a fervor that was borderline pious
An accident occurs then they fall into the shredder
Turned into a topping as opposed to shredding letters

Now just think…
It’s an analogy of war, the beings that are scarred
Ronald says chop these up to serve it over the bar
The space behind the counter’s like a morgue for war
Piles of different bodies like attacks from SARS

Wrapped up in a sheet…in the end they made me
Call me a cheeseburger – a combination of my enemies
A platoon inside the burger buns as the tanks
Units of those just like me, all lined up in ranks

Green lettuce on top like the helmet of a fascist
Ketchup as the blood that flows within the masses
Onions that make the tears fall, children run up and brawl
Pickles that turn faces sour like milk that spoiled

Meat patties, the main ingredient like a bomb that slays man
Then just add the special sauce to add to the calorie mayhem
In the end I was the one, like the Matrix in Iraq
Or the super weapon of the times with my flavor intact

A stock room full of numbers
A freezer, chill as swimming pools in the winter
All my buddies quickly chosen, legions left cryogenically frozen
To be unthawed in the heat that battle imposes

To be served to the people to please them
Casualties as constant as the changing of seasons
So I paused and told them…
Take me instead – I just don’t want another friend dead

I don’t want to see another ally meet their quick demise
Perish right in front of my sesame seed eyes
Brittle crust scorched then eaten by these carnivores
Watch them rear and roar –
Then strike their prey with tens of teeth or more

Bicuspids that break foes, and take souls
Rip apart chunks of my reinforcements and patrols
Sowing fear, the opposition’s mellow
“Already no honor amongst fellows
It’s harder than sitting with a blind man and trying to describe yellow”
Like a poet once said…

Like an offering – they put me on the tray for a customer
It seems the time has come for what is written in my destiny
…feeling like Frankenstein – a composition of fallen soldiers
I can smell the morning fries and the fresh cup of Folger’s

I look at the time at the time I’m unwrapped
It’s 10: 31 a.m. when roughly I’m grabbed
Being brought to an open mouth
So I open mine and start screaming
This isn’t happening, I must be dreaming

And it turns out I was…
But it certainly put things in perspective
To the life and death of a cheeseburger
From birth to digestion…ha-ha