Hunger Artist
Hunger Artist - A Kafkaesque Moment
By: Earl Schumacker
(influenced by “A Hunger Artist”- short story by: Franz Kafka)
Food is foreign and mysterious to me now
Tolerance for such things is vile
My art once held the masses
In a mesmerizing enchanted grip
These days nothing matters
Death by hunger is dismissed
No one comes by my cage
To keep me faithful to my pain, as it really is
Starvation has lost its style
Or flavor should I say
Such enlightenment and with it fame
Once came quick
The children gathered by the thousands
To prove that nothing happened
Watching frantically; morning noon and night
To see no food had passed the artists lips
And death would take them nicely without tricks
I can’t remember ever being free
My cage and I came together mysteriously
We seem to be the same thing
Starving came instinctively
As last hunger artist I can’t resign
I have to see enlightenment one time
With or without people to observe
Even if I should die before my time alone
Copyright © Earl Schumacker | Year Posted 2014
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