Introduction
For my honors project in college, I need to create a portfolio of work based around a theme. And, after several exercises in my poetry class last semester, I've found some very intriguing ways to toy with food as a subject. So, for my portfolio, I'm going to focus on food - or, specifically, the various ways in which we react to, feel about, receive, love, reject, and eat food. Might sound trivial, but I don't think it is - food is a passion for many of us, and our emotions about what we eat or cook can be truly profound.
Ergo, I bring to you the honored privilege of peeking in at my progress on this project. The order of these poems does not yet reflect the final order for the portfolio.
For the sake of this website, I'm isolating the Fear of Flesh story arc from this collection. But they'll be integrated into the final product.
Contents
Invoking the Muse: Ode to Honey
Flour on the Counter
Romancing the Cake
Flour on the Counter
Romancing the Cake
Weapons for Chefs
To The Chicken
Living in the Student Village at Swansea
Childhood To Go
Old Haunt, New Haunt
Kitchen Murder Scene
Torments of a Carrot
Rations
Childhood To Go
Old Haunt, New Haunt
Kitchen Murder Scene
Torments of a Carrot
Rations
For when doctors try to give children foul medicine, they first smear the rim of the cup with the sweet and golden liquid of honey…
Thus, I tried to expound my philosophy to you in sweet-sounding poetry, the honey of the Muses.
~Lucretius
Invoking the Muse: Ode to Honey
Whenever my throat was raked and sore,
Mother would summon the plastic bear
And coax the honey from his hair –
To a spoon that poured the golden salve
Down to coat internal scars.
Whenever food triggered storms in my gut,
Mom could concoct a PBHB instead -
Peanut butter, honey, banana slabs, and bread -
To brave the acid chamber and fill the void
Growing deep within.
Whenever yellow dust enflamed my nose,
Mother journeyed down our country road,
And brought back honey from a local abode –
An amber vaccine for the pollen spores
Which I snuck down in spoonfuls.
Yes, as a child, I trusted this amber -
And my mother’s squeezing hand -
More than doctors could ever understand.
So if the next few verses
May irritate your eye,
Here, at least, is the honey
That sweetens the worst surprise.
What’s “1 pkg. powdered sugar”?
Do chocolate chips fold like birthday cards?
How could cream cheese ever be fluffy?
1 c. flour tumbles in the bowl;
Her grimy little hand flicks the switch.
POOF! Plinian cloud dusts the counter.
I couldn’t get them to mix, she says,
Lifting the glass of milk with oily gold on top.
Oh, no! says Mother. That’s not buttermilk.
How much garlic is in a clove?
Eggs are easier to fry
Than they are to crack.
That’s not a piece of shell
In the scrambled eggs, is it?
Mother sighs and wipes the towel
Over batter droplets, sugar stains,
Flour patches. Getting better, but.
This Sunday she can shut the book.
Pancake batter by rote today –
But white or semi-sweet chips?
Caramel squares leave sticky tufts
When melted in glass;
Chocolate, dried black stains.
Now, for any white dust that drifts
Below, she dampens a paper towel
And pats the mess, coaxing it out.
Ugh! How do I spread this icing
Without tearing up the cake?
Months cloistered in a dorm room.
She returns home for Christmas
And finds Mother limp on the couch.
That year, she baked all the goods –
Cutout cookies with almond icing,
Painted with spoons and picks;
Two dozen candy-dipped Oreos;
Sandy blonde brownies, replete with
White chocolate chunks.
Full days bound to the kitchen,
Mixing, cooking, washing, licking.
She wouldn’t leave until
All the dishes were packed,
The blender was clean,
And the countertops shone
Like Mother’s crutches in the lamp light.
---
Romancing the Cake
Dressed to kill in cream cheese icing –
She waits in a pale shelter
Behind a plastic veil.
She’s been hurt – her dark, spongy skin
Is scattered on the platter she rests on.
You caress her wounds and pry
Flakes from her face. Your finger
Traces the hem of her creamy dress.
You want to cut her – slip a knife
Over her coconut hair, and wrap
Your tongue around her moist flesh…
But she will sicken you;
Just like that other whore in white –
The rosy one with red splotches.
Or the blond chick with
The lemony gown. Or even
The naked angel with the halo face.
These girls, they kiss so sweetly at first,
But they linger in that pale shelter
And beg to be raped
Day after day
By any man with a knife.
Still, no one will know tonight.
The kitchen is dark and vacant,
And she beckons from her blazing room
with that heady scent of sugar and cocoa.
---
Weapons for Chefs
Perhaps an axe should sever spaghetti
Instead of bodies and heads –
And splatter Ragu rather than blood.
Maybe claymores should be wrenched
From cold steel gauntlets
And bestowed to butchers
For hacking at hanging pigs.
Let chefs grind the gunpowder out
Of grenades and guns
To smother muddy hunks of steak.
But
If halberds hacked meaty chunks
Hiding in angel hair
Or claymores cleaved dead hogs
To hocks and loins for humans to eat
Or gunpowder graced our tongues
With a smoky, acid taste
Won’t blood still flow in saucepans and plates?
---
To The Chicken
So. I’m about to eat you.
I’ve stuck the fork in your breast.
Your skin is quite pale –
Are you scared, or seared?
Don’t crawl to the carrots now, love.
The knife shall dissect you soon.
And don’t think your garlic scent
Will repel me, dear. I saw you
Kiss the pan, and hiss with glee.
But while you bathed in oil,
I coaxed the coat off the swede,
Hacked her into cubes,
And boiled her flesh in a pot.
When she had soaked in enough,
I smashed her golden pulp
And poured her on my plate.
With a little sprinkle of salt,
She has tasted good on my tongue.
But you, my love, must be cut
Into many chunks
Before I may savor you.
Don’t tremble, dear, don’t cry.
Your greasy tears can’t move me.
Be still and suffer the knife.
Go ahead and saw my flesh.
There will be no blood.
Only dry shreds that will
Jam your throat.
---
Living in the Student Village At Swansea
My shelf of the fridge-
Three hulking parsnips,
A wedge of cheese in orange wax,
A carton of seaweed (laverbread here),
One spare bell pepper, yellow.
Half a bap of white bread
In a Ziploc bag.
Four blood sausages sealed together
In plastic.
Three plump pears.
Four Müllen yogurt tubs.
Her shelf of the fridge –
Half a can of corn, still open.
Two parfaits.
A stack of cheese slices.
One ready-made bacon-egg sandwich,
Another one with sausage.
A half-drained jar of mayo.
Two fruits cups, mostly melon.
A carry-out carton of curry, half full.
A few cans of diet soda.
A pack of rashers.
I have nothing in the freezer.
Her shelf –
Three cheese pizzas,
Five pasties in a bag,
Two lasagna boxes.
One bag of chips.
Two chicken tikki breasts.
I cut a parsnip in two and
Steep a cup of spiced apple tea
While she scrapes the can of corn
Into the trash.
Childhood To Go
The fast food joints grew up with us.
They were the nurseries of our youth,
Inviting us with bright blue vinyl,
Mint green tiles, pastel walls.
French fries were our ambrosia –
Often gold and straight,
Arrayed like crayons
In ivory cartons.
You unwrapped pancake burgers;
I had my juicy chicken fingers
With nectar from the gods -
How could mustard be so sweet?
The real treasures, of course,
Were the plastic toys
Nestled at the bottom of the bag.
Each meal was a lottery -
Remember your slick, black car,
Zooming over the cherry table;
My puny yellow clock with
Tiny girls choking the hands?
Outside, the tubular slide
Beckoned to swallow and spit us
Onto the wood chip ground.
These days, we seek no sanctuary
In the hamburger havens of our youth,
But we’ve watched them change.
The color’s been drained from
Those cheery tiles, often to
An earthy brown, and the creamy walls
Darkened to butterscotch.
Snowy white benches with
Their rainbow cushions
Are muted with natural wood
And stiff, black chairs.
French fries are no longer holy –
Apple slices are the new gold.
We’ve finally spotted the grease
Staining the ivory cartons.
And the serpentine slides crouched outside
Have all but slithered away.
More and more adults sulk in these dens
And gorge still on taller burgers,
Fatter fingers, more crayon fries.
We, at least, have outgrown fast food.
Old Haunt, New Haunt
Chelsea’s for the lunch hour –
To the same stiff-backed chairs
And the girls with navy smocks who ask
About your wife, your kids, your job.
Picture frames on the creamy walls
Encase newspaper clippings
With sepia snapshots
Of your fathers and mothers
In suits, jerseys, and dresses.
You and your mates own the bar,
Sometimes laughing, sometimes dumb
While munching down crinkle fries
And drinking up beer.
Where to for lunch?
Chelsea’s? That cubbyhole on the corner?
Oh, no. Not that ancient pub.
Café Blanc just opened its doors.
They grow all their herbs –
basil and sage, mint and thyme –
In a garden in the back
Alongside grape tomatoes,
Spinach and romaine.
And they use real brick ovens
And guyeré cheese from France;
The wines they display in wicker racks
All boast Italian names.
Kitchen Murder Scene
The murders occurred
On nine paper plates,
Left in the couch and chairs.
The cake was a whore,
Though she donned a virgin’s dress.
Chunks of her dark skin litter
Her ivory altar.
Smells lurk in the fridge,
But no victims are left.
The empty shelves are stained
With tomato sauce like blood.
White powder on the countertop –
Smells like milk, looks like crack.
Murder weapons rest in the sink:
Forks, knifes, spoons.
Some soak in a grease-caked mug
That bears my name in gold.
These suspects also stole
The liquid gold
From six silver cans
Now gleaming in the trash bin.
Just one pale bread slice
Witnessed this slaughter
From behind her plastic sleeve.
Looks like she’s out cold.
Better take her in.
Torments For A Carrot
1.
Cleave to orange bones,
To plunge in the thick, bleached balm
That muffles their taste.
2.
Shred flesh in flakes,
Toss in a leafy prison –
Drown in pungent cream.
3. Chopped to dwarfish stumps,
Sunk in the steaming water
To soften and shrink.
4.
Hack to splinters,
Bombard with black raisins, and
Smother in acid.
Rations
We had the last car in the train -
Stiff box seats, rattling with the rails,
Brick buildings rolling in the window.
The canvas bag
That hid the sausage
Slouched in its seat.
It held bread, too - one long loaf,
With golden crusts that cracked
Under our teeth –
But it was that ruddy flesh,
Even when it oozed grease
And breathed rotting breath,
That I craved.
The tube was already cut in the wax
When Fischmann first unwrapped it.
Infected. Wounds that would fester
And seep decay, merging
With stenches creeping in
Through the sliding door:
Sweat, urine, bile,
And that dirty Jew smell.
Each new chunk stank worse than the last.
But no one refused his ration.
For we were men, servants of the Reich,
Purging the vermin from our German home.
And sausage, spoiled or not, wasn’t fit for
Non-Aryan enemies.
At the station, we dragged to a stop.
Droves of threadbare bodies
Spilled out from every car.
As the pinched-in faces passed,
I though of taut skin,
Wrapped around grounded entrails.
My stomach moaned too loudly.
Nine hundred and fifty Jews
Were transferred to the camp
In one hour. Not one hitch.
How could I eat that putrid flesh?
How could we ignore the smell?
How could we laugh and joke
About these orders we numbly obeyed?
I don’t eat sausage anymore.
