86'd

A poet calling himself Eighty-Six has popped up to say

I've just published something new and different on Smashwords. Cathartes Aura and the Apocalypse Zoo is a post-apocalyptic novel-in-verse about a zoo on the day no one showed up, narrated by a captive turkey vulture. One thousand lines long. Written in 10 by 10 format. I'll be at Aunties on the 17th for the open read.

... which reminds me that, among other things, I really ought to condense and pass on Auntie's packed calendar for April. The community reading is just one of many great events — both festival-related and otherwise — taking place this month.

Eighty-Six has published the first forty lines of Cathartes Aura on his blog as a teaser. The first verse runs:

Off day at the zoo. No one came to work.
The gates were not unchained. No tourists tapped
At the glass, grackled, squawked, mimicked the birds.
And we were never fed. Three times a day
They liked to throw us parts: legs furred with hooves,
Hindquarters with the tail, heads with antlers
Or horns attached. Every beak grab a gland
And tug, twist, flap with all your appetite.
Get your gutful before they pull the corpse.
End of show. But the gawkers, they loved it.

I don't know if Eighty-Six's pseudonym has anything to do with his life spent in foodservice, but I am sure from my own extended stint as a waiter that 86 is restaurant lingo for "no longer available." As in, Waiter: "That table of obnoxious, pimply 15-year-olds who are probably going to stiff me just ordered bacon cheese fries." Line chef: "Sorry, bacon cheese fries are 86'd. Suggest the bacon cheese broccoli instead." Eighty-six's focus on post-apocalyptic scenarios would make sense in this context — 86-ing on a planetary scale.