Gandhi Meets Hannibal Lecter

Gandhi meets Hannibal Lecter

Accidentally

At the Stop N Shop on Punjabi Road.

While considering a super jumbo coffee,

Lecter says

What's with you?

Wearing diapers

And those sissy glasses?

How can you go through life

Passively resisting

Like some prissy schoolgirl?

Don't you ever

Want to feel the passion and the power

Of blood squishing through your fingers just because you could?

Don't you ever

Just want to be bad?

Gandhi selects some sunflower seeds

And says,

My friend,

Don't you feel foolish

In that hockey mask

And straightjacket,

Wheeled in here

On a beerman's trolley

Like a dumb beast

Or a hellish baby?

Doesn't it ever bother you

Pretty counter girls calling the police

Instead of smiling?

And don't you realize

With every blade you twist

Just because you can,

You are really skewering your own heart

'Til it is scarred

And deformed

And as useless as a rotten potato?

You get away with nothing, suggests Gandhi.

I get away with everything, insists Lecter.

Go home and pray, advises Gandhi.

You'd look good on a plate, muses Lecter.

But at least we agree

(they say in oddly beautiful unison)

On the fava beans.