The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel

There's something amiss with this genteel soiree:
A bear, sheep, and chicken feet, hidden away.
Inane chatter (strange in its lack of much sense)
Emits from the revelers; why'm I so tense?
Buñuel sets the stage for a party so odd
All this 'fore the meat (when the fête starts to nod).

Arise! You elite (so professions suggest)
And gaze at the chains swapped for tails, furs, and vests.
A prison of wealth and a carpenter's tool,
A room full of braggarts; of cheaters; of fools.
How's company now that you're stuck with yourselves?
What once was so decadent, now turns to hell.

The basest of instincts are wretched and spurned?
Hold onto your wallets; the tables are turned:
In just a few days sans foie gras and champagne
To animals, even, there's not one still sane.
The blood starts to flow, and humanity's lost
(At least until folks realize their faux pas).

And, aye, here's the rub - what seems strangest to me:
Buñuel can't be quelled 'til are found 'Q's and P's.'
The message, clear prior to, now flits away;
Are 'cordial' and 'proper' the words of the day?
A final excursion; the house of the lord;
A message twist'd twice o'er ol' Damocles' sword.

So here there be spoilers of what it all means
(At least best as I can guess / least hows I leans):
A damning display of bourgeois proxy rage?
Or simply a mind trapped in normalcy's cage
Ahowl to be freed and to shake up the scene
With visions and nightmares both strange and serene?

Grotesque, madd'ning, morbid, revolting, and rough;
Buñuel seems to revel in mind-matter snuff.
Too long it might seem dwell on torturous pain
But boil men down and here's all that remains:
When worse comes to worst what's the diff'rence between
A man and a beast? Nothing much, it would seem.

Why state in (bad) rhyme what would make sense in prose?
When shit gets this weird, it just fits, I suppose...
Though prone to be blunt with its social critique
And gets a bit clunky maintaining mystique,
(Forgive both elisions to come) still, Buñuel's
Exterm'nating Angel is awful(ly swell).

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