Tripe

Ron Koppelberger

Tripe

The mountain of steaming tripe lay in slatherings of mustard and barbecue sauce. He gobbled like a grazing hog and belched like a grumbling lion. The tripe was a saucer of adventure. Steaming, salted and in acquiescent nuances of savor the tripe offered its taste. Crazy-quilt images of rainbow sunshine leapt and fluttered through the mosaic of stained glass onto the course wood and lattice walls. A picture of cows grazing through fields of wheat hung at an angle on the slated wall.
“MMMMMMM…..MMMMMMMM!” he sputtered in full quivers of tripe and sauce. A bit of tripe fell to the plate and he scooped it up groaning , “Yummy, Yummy!” it disappeared in a greasy gulp of belching hunger, he was famished, starved, tripe, tripe, tripe…………a contest of ripe warrant and famished consent. When he finished the tripe he ate the plate in saw slivered madness, then the spoon and with wild glee the heavy oak table, splinters of wood fell to the carpeted floor as he belched and grinned a bloody toothed gasp of desire, desire in hunger, the wont for sustenance and savor.
* The edge of the world anchored the girth of the man and the earth prayed on the mind of sorceries as resolute as tripe and in need of blessings concluded by the satisfaction of expectation.