a friend

he tells me nothing
is better than taking
a good shit

i laugh but then i
notice he has built his life
around taking good shits
efficient and clean

he eats whole grains and
fruits and vegetables and
each morning and night
metamucil he avoids meats
from inferior butchers
snacks on yogurt and oats

bataille wrote about this
shit
he looked at it
the way we eat and defecate
linked it to the way
we appropriate and create

a marker of high modernism
might be the attempt to shit
well to read as much as possible
digest it using your own filter
to shit a masterpiece
like joyce or pound

but what might be possible
when you decide
shit is shit

This is the third in a series of untitled “Friend poems” by Daniel Woody from a manuscript entitled bless us (who have chosen soul). Read the second here.