Appetite Post-Surgical


My food is eating me 
When I lie down my stomach sits up,
this sick center of mortal existence
Which of us will digest the other?

Indigestible me:
a pain additive
choked down with every feeding
grows at length into a bigger pain
until it alienates my affections
from the act of consumption, 
then goes on to sitting, standing, reclining,
working up to breathing,
even as we cease to speak

Food and I are at an impasse,
a no-go zone
I lounge in my bed sheets,
recalling a lustier fellow at table,
eating everything in sight
'These skinny guys,' a portlier colleague once remarked,
with some ire,
'who can eat so much pizza'

Pizza free, he's hiding in there somewhere,
that long-ago lithe fellow reliably good for dessert,
desperately seeking to eat his way out





Coming Together, Falling Apart 


Undergraduate philosophers splitting hairs 
somewhere in the Black Forest of logical contradictions,
stumbling along with Major P and Minor P, that sitcom platoon.
Commander Immanuel, that ubiquitous deity in German,
proves by reason alone that God exists
and then with very same instrument, still sharp after a vigorous workout, 
that surely he does not 

Reason thus emerges safely from the fray, a permanent, practical guide,
marching us forward, tin helmets and all,
so long as Sergeant Empirical
provides some facts in the ration box:
Meat on the table,
Mind the sauce
Brexit, therefore Text-it.
A walk in the park (same time every day) 
then back to the broody business of divvying up
the happily known from the hopelessly Inconnu,
that place of dragons 
where a certain turn of mind plants angels.

I, too, choose angels 
(O reason not the need)
leaning over our soldiering shoulders
as we stoop in our labors,
dividing the roses from the thorns 





Food for Thought

​
I like a big meal
mounds and mounds of carbo-people
Takes hours to finish, eat all day,
eat the hours in seconds, finish off the minutes taking my time
Begin shortly after waking, 
late, as always,
and devoting myself to the arts of consumption
I will devour them all
I am quite mad
when I dance down the sidewalks
of the city, those fat ones
on the avenues, which likewise are full
of the songs of self-indulgence
I am never alone,
the city is inside me,
faces come out of a dream menu,
more real than otherwise,
a parade day, holiday of eyes and teeth, figures costumed 
for the play
They leer and work their mouths,
screwy, hopelessly bland, childed, 
sterile and severe, thinking of the little 
dog they left behind
to gaze all day hopefully from the window
little doggy feet praying with dumb belief in 
the God of Nature for their glorious return
A reverie interrupted by some 
asinine, self-indulgent dervish
when they were dreaming of the weekend,
a place cool and leaf-worn,
not shop-worn, city-worn, tall building-worn,
dreaming of going fishing with their husband,
one of those stories we tell ourselves 

And younger typ-os, hair below their ears, 
sketchy mustaches, carrying black cases 
(this is long ago: nobody staring at hand-held devices)
they want to join in and act silly too
but just can't let go
because what if anybody saw,
and how will they know when it's time
to button up again, wipe the sneery-leer off their face,
that smear of juvenile milky mustache, encrusted cookie crumbs 
in the corners of their mouth (eating their way through the day, etc.)
glaze of child-passion sweat on their forehead
Race you to the swimming hole!
This is no time for foolishness, you object.
When, then, is that time? 

A monster is loose, seeking to eat us all, 
as we scurry down the alley-way of tomorrow,
today already consumed (used up; no good any more)
The glass and steel towers zoop us up,
giant anteaters with air-conditioned intestines,
butts litter the sidewalk
We will eat this day through a mound of doughnuts
taller than the Imperial Nation Building, 
consuming the century that is no longer ours,
we are great-full we are not dead
We inject our veins with the stimulus 
of a hundred nations, a thousand villages, 
from machines both ancient and cutting-edge
able to spray the lactation of cows across the face 
of a thousand vessels, a thousand glass eyes,
obscuring the face at the window, 
the face of tomorrow
the beast at the portal toying with security,
tearing off heads, munching on ratings 
And all we ever want
is a taste of Now.