Locofotives

THE BLOOD OF THE WITCH

By Santiago Murphy Huevas de Rana © 2006

Some blood runs hot,
Some blood runs cold,
Some blood boils in the pot
Nine days old… yuck!

This is a tale of blood so odd
Tis either from Hell
Or from the throne of God…

Gurgling in the veins of the old Bog Witch
Runs blood as thick as mud in a ditch.
Oh so sauce-like and very dark red
Her blood should make her fall down dead.
Every time the visiting vampire dines
He says, "Blast! Her blood tastes like Heinz."

"And her flesh… just a little like chicken!"
And he quickens
His pace to find
The secret to her peculiar bloodlines.

Now, Heinz, you might mutter,
Isn't even as old as butter,
Yet therein lies the mysterious story:
1869 was not Heinz' first glory.

In the beginning just after First Light
After the Spirit parted the night,
Just when oceans were made,
Long before chocolate or lemonade,
There was Heinz…
And Heinz moved on the water.
Before land masses or corn fodder
Heinz was drawn into being
For the Creator was seeing
A future with burgers and fries...
He chortled aloud, parting the skies
With these thunderous words:
"From this I'll create myriad birds,
Fish, frogs, and the Kingdom of Fife!
This is Salsa de Vida, the Sauce of Life!"

From Salsa de Vida He formed every creature,
Every mold and tree and geological feature,
And so it went, till all wonderful things
Were fixed with hooves and faces and wings.
At their center was antioxidant carotene
Now known as Heinz or Holy Lycopene.

Heinz was the elixir sought through the ages
By men and women with and without wages.
Healing power resided in Holy Lycopene
And was extolled centuries ago by the Nazarene,
Who fed five thousand with one holy bottle
And three baskets of fries from a guy named Schlottel.
Miracle Heinz could heal the deaf and blind,
Protect the prostate and cure the weak mind.

Because greedy wee men soon killed for the stuff
The Creator thundered, "Enough is enough!"
And Holy Lycopene was hidden from view
With only a few knowing the secret of the Brew.
These loved tomatoes, the sun, and the mud
And had Lycopene naturally thick in their blood.

You can spot them only by the way they eat,
The thickness of their blood or the hair on their feet.
In the adult stages of the Lycopene life
Their only drink is the Salsa, the Sauce of Life.

One such child was born southernmost
On the swampy edges of the Florida coast.
Her mother declared, "She's not of my ilk,
This child drinks ketchup as if it were milk!"

So did her father, so this was no big thing:
This Heinz-guzzling baby was HIS offspring.
He never got enough, he constantly said,
It was good for his bowels and great for his head.

The peculiar child grew like all the rest
And when it came to prayer, she did her best
To bring forth the image of the Nazarene…
Yet there each night appeared that Lycopene!

She tried to fit in; she tried to play right,
But at every picnic there would be a fight
For the greedy wee Nazis screamed, "Ist meinz!"
And took away her much needed Holy Heinz.
They suspected she had the stuff in her veins
So they chased her for years to get at her brains.

Eventually she fled to the place of her dreams
Far from the madness and far from the screams,
Learning the magic of her ancient bloodlines
As a high priestess at the Temple of Heinz.

Lycopene had the power to heal all ills,
To clean out the colon and fix fever and chills,
To lift the mind to clearer thought,
And to keep the body from weakness and rot.

It was the fountain of youth, the perennial sauce
That created new life from even the dross
And the dregs and the remains of the dead,
Building up tissue and bones and a new head.

And this Heinz they desired, those men full of greed
Not for the world but for their own rotten breed
To make profit on the backs of the helpless poor
To gain all its power and more and more and more.

So they hunted the priestess and the Temple of Heinz,
Breaking down the altar and screaming, "Ist meinz!"
They caged her, they chained her,
They bit her, they drained her,

And left her shattered body to molder in the mud,
Where paramedics found her and tried to give her blood…
"Which is useless, I'm sure," said one who was smart,
"This woman needs Heinz in her dying heart!"

And she rallied and smiled and thanked each one
As she watched the last drips of the IV run
Into her veins but alas, it was too late,
And she died that night at half past eight.

They raised a fine stone to her memory here
A stone with the trappings of her life quite clear
To remind all the gluttonous graspers of wealth
That Heinz alone can't guarantee good health.

She left from the world of greedy wee men
Altogether happy, for she never fit in,
And she knew in her spirit as it flew through space
That she'd soon see the Creator face to face.

He sent His ambassador out to meet her
With a bottle of Holy Lycopene to greet her,
And eternal life was hers for a smile from Scrat
For the truth be known, Heinz is sauce from a rat.

© LocoFotives 2006

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