ah pasta!

the quality of good writing
is always strained,
unlike mercy,
always salted and drained,
the experience
combinatory of all
your five senses,
together in concert,
lusting for
each rivulet of
spaghetti strands
stands,
indivisible, under god.

calorically sinning individually,
defying forking unification,
each recalling the where,
the what, or the when,
but not
ah,
the how!

matters this know-now,
the how,
this how came calling,
fork+ spoon,
the resurrection
of inspiration,
the genetic sequence of
past mis-steppes

the how of life oft
grows spoiled, fuzzy first,
because a human assembled
it a long ago, the how,
but time took it upon itself,
to deconstruct
so
the tomato sauce bolognese
inspirational stains
exist to remind us
how
to remain perfect forever

poetica est enim propter cibum

poetry is what you eat

no one
asks me
for anything

so i
make
my stomach
beg

my freezer is full
of vegetables and meat
I wonder what to eat

Steve Page the elder
Sat with real pleasure
Eating his birthday cake
He took a large bite
And got a great fright
He'd swallowed his tongue by mistake.

sometimes
just sometimes
i wish i could throw up my heart
that ******, throbbing hunk of raw flesh
and hold it in my hand
feel for any emotion
and throw it at the passing cars
and my heart would bounce off the pavement
or skid over the gravel
or splatter across someone’s windshield
or pop like firecrackers under someone’s tire
or maybe i’d throw it so hard, so far,
it’d soar into the summer heat and hang--suspended--
before plummeting towards the earth,
and smashing through someone’s roof
and plopping itself into some quintessential, two-kid, two-parent, white-fence family’s dinner
and maybe the four would devour the thing like a hog off the roast
and celebrate their civility
or maybe the parents would scream in horror and shoot the thing
or maybe the kids would find it first in their backyard and burn it to win the science fair
or maybe the dog would find the remains and wet its muzzle in the thing’s blood
or maybe the snooping neighbors would find it first and feed it to the chickens
or maybe—
or maybe it wouldn’t really matter what happened to my heart.
i never felt anything with it anyway.

it's a pretty simple recipe, really;
white bread, toasted until golden brown;
a slice of cheese, a drizzle of ketchup;
eggs, beaten;
fry for 4 minutes, or however long you desire.

sometimes i’d snap a pic or two for my friends—
all of whom said it was unhealthy,
but it can’t be more unhealthy than staying up past 2,
can it?

because who cares if i were to eat breakfast at 12pm,
or dine as the sun rises?
the universe sure as hell doesn’t give a ****,
especially not in the middle of a crisis
caused by some ******* virus

it’s not like time gives out prizes,
for everyone who’s managed to maintain a “healthy” routine
and doesn’t spent 18 hours
in front of  a screen

i’m getting tired of compromises
every new problem that arises
hardly surprises
me anymore

so if you’ll excuse me,
i’ll go back to my devices
now