Contemporary Valhalla, Part Two

You are a coward but Lo! You’re "in" among heroes

In this afterlife

With no signs of poverty.

At dinner you’re handed a gold toothpick

& a wormy poet sidles up

To sing your praises.

(In life you were a varnished toad,

But in Valhalla O you are suddenly blessed

With big teeth and grabby hands.)

Yep. In Valhalla you’re a hero with the others—

Marrow suckers, Colonels, bureaucrats, boot lickers,

All lately of the swamp & if truth be told

You’re all a tad slimy to be sitting at table.

But there you are,

Eating the heart out of something that still has a pulse,

A moral thing,

We’ll call it Philosophy’s lamb.

S.K.