I went to the Cordon Bleu
And my name is Pierre
I work in the kitchen
I’m a French chef extraordinaire

With fine French food
My name is synonymous
But I am an addict
I attend McDonalds Anonymous

When I make a quiche
I just want to hug it
But I keep getting cravings
For a Chicken McNugget

Fast food or French food
I am conflicted
Fast food or French food
Yes I am addicted

The 12-step program
Keeps me on track
I have to fight my desire
To binge on Big Mac

I pretend I’m a food snob
My life’s full of lies
When I buy burgers
I must wear a disguise

I should come out of the closet
Admit my transgressions
Then they would accept me
For my fast food obsessions

Maybe the other chefs
Would heap me with praise
If I smothered my Big Macs
With Sauce Hollandaise

For ShirleyB*


Feel your heartbeat quicken
For these pasta-salad days:
I am bringing chicken.

Bulging bellies thicken
Laden with crab hollandaise.
Feel your heartbeat quicken.

Sweet Siobhan seems stricken
By the puddings and soufflés.
(I am bringing chicken.)

Insert thy toothpick in
Anastasia’s canapés:
Feel your heartbeat quicken.

Beatrice (she’s Wiccan)
Brought a heap of warm beignets;
I am bringing chicken.

Jealousy shall sicken
Those who brought their best entrées--
Feel your heartbeat quicken:
I am bringing chicken!

i'm getting so tired of
breakfast.

it comes with eggs and a veg,
bread,
some kind of meat,
jams or jellies,
coffee or tea,
and a cigarette.

(if you got'em smoke'm)

there's an order to it:
the order in which it's sold,
cooked,
spread,
served,
smoked,
and the lingering scent
is enough
to entice Lunch to dinner.

i'm tired.
it takes up my morning,
burns out my bulb
before the sun rises,
and i don't have the drive to love myself.
i don't have the gumption to water
the money tree in my flaking window sill.

and that's ok.

no one needs breakfast,
or a money tree,
when there is no fast to break from.
i eat day in and day out,
we all do,
food is so easy now.
what we need is a breakfeed
from the Fat Tuesday
that is every day of the week.

you wouldn't give up
on your fill though
when the hole in your gut
is so deep
that it would take a tightrope
for your hands to reach your feet,
bound tight and trussed
like a turkey
for turkey day,
and a week
of cannibalistic frivolity
at the cost of your dignity.

Television cooks rarely do
Fish, chips and mushy peas
With spotted **** for afters.

No
It’s got to be
Creamy coconut curry
With Balingud Zalud
Soaked in Chimichurri sauce.

Or Jalapena Lime Slaw
Accompanied by spicy Sriracia mayo
And Rachero Sauce.
Plus a side-dish of fluffy soufflés.

The starter is a vibrant veggy ratatouille
With sashimi, tacos and tortillas.

But then there’s always vemuelli noodles,
Pommes frittes
Teriyehi
Thana messala
And Enchilada Casserole
Covered in Romesco Sauce
Or Hollandaise
With Falafels and couscous.
Then Neapolitan Ice Cream souffled Erotica.

All impossible of course.
But don’t we love
The sheer seduction of those Words.

Paul Butters

© PB 28\4\2020.

Simple things, like a slow start to a late morning
Like listening to old disco waft over the scent of Arabic roasts
The slight insistence of last night's indulgence not quite crawling across my brain
Like watching my capering daughter with her joy in a small rainbow umbrella
Small hands wanting to help with tasks only a little too large
The company of bright minds in Similar states of satiation
Full of the richness of hollandaise, eggs, the sharp oiled smoke of salmon
Simple things like hi-fiving as we collapse on the sofa, space cleansed, evening sun sprawled a crossed the wall
Golden Berlin sunset calling a riot of houseplants into soft violet contrast, shadows long
Simple like the way the sun catches your profile, and my breath catches in my throat..

Simple things

HUNGER

When I think of you
I marvel at your fragility,
How little you sustain yourself with.
If I could do what I would, I would,
I would bring you coq au vin with carrots glazed in brown sugar,
And onions glaces a brun, ringed with pommes duchesse;
And saffron pistachio rissotto with lobster ravioli
Bathed in a tomato champagne reduction sauce;
Or salmon poached in Alsatian Riesling,
Smothered in a rich Hollandaise, on a queen-sized bed of spinach.
I'd fatten you up,
Feed your body;
But of course it isn’t proteins, calories, fats, carbohydrates
That you quest for:
That would be so easy.

My secrets are all hidden underneath poached eggs and hollandaise sauce as the sun creeps up over the horizon after another sleepless night. The requisite, routine, clearly, clearly, that's reasonable. I was surprised by your cunning, clever nature. You are so much more than you seem.

I fell in love with the process, like the little black notes that make up a slow jam or the pores on your body all clogged and gasping for air. The little spaces in between the letters seem so functional, so right. I am grabbed at grabbed at too too much. Radios and drama, culminating in a slow and painful downward spiral that never seems to end.

The green bar at the top of the marquee distracted me and I walked into pole after pole. I have saved this afternoon for you, don't you know! I paused and rewound and found the perfect spot to stop and rescue you. The sea birds are a little faster than me. The mermaids will not sing for me. They see through my game.

And I can't recreate the sound of home, like I want to. And the bed is so empty without you next to me. And the drive is long and lonely and without destination.

Let’s go, you and I.
And sweat beneath the African sky
Watch the lions lazing
And the wild dogs playing.  
We can sip Amarula
And listen to the hyenas laugh and cry
As the mythical sunset
Silhouettes giraffes and Acacia trees.

Let’s go, you and I
And walk the streets of old town Barcelona.
Find old timey cafe and luxuriate
In sangria and itty bitty tapas
Stroll by Sagrada and gawp
At Gaudi’s home.
Maybe we’ll stop for some ice cream
Maybe we’ll just go back to the hotel

Let’s go, you and I
And swim the blue blue seas of the Bahamas
Nervously Play with the nurse sharks
Hoping they’re not the other sharks
Take those long walks on those beaches
That everyone likes.
We’ll sit on Jankanoo and drink sky juice
Until we can truly reach the heavens

Let’s go, you and I
And ski the Slopes of the Swiss alps
We can stop at small cabins and drink
heartwarming schnapps
Take trains that slink around mountains
And sprint through white capped forests
We can put snow down the backs
Of each others jackets and
Squeal in furious delight.

Let’s go, you and I.
And squish our way through the streets of New York
Relieved when we can pop into a shop
To escape the crowds.
Necks sore from looking up
Small town people in the Big Apple City
Central Park for pretzels and Snapple
Times Square later, neon addiction sated.
And a boat ride to see lady liberty

Let’s go, you and I
And bare our feet in Balinese temples
Speak to the monks in broken English
And then retire to our curtained gazebo
To indulge in the sins they can’t
We’ll get massages and champagne
Then ride our bikes along pothole
Ridden dirt roads.

Let’s go, you and I
And get Nuevo Chic in London’s west end
We can catch a show in tux and evening gown
Then head to the pub and catch a pint
We can walk the trail, hunt Jack the Ripper
And visit The Tower.
Cross the Thames and maybe
No definitely
Another pint in some quaint little place.

Let’s go, you and I
And lie in bed late on lazy Sunday mornings
I’ll poach the eggs and make the hollandaise
You can put some upbeat daytime jazz on
Then we can go sit in the garden
Under the oak tree and read
Each other poetry
Until it’s much much later
...

There are mirrors all over this place
and each wall is hologram-ed with my reflection. I am pink and blue with the
pale ideas of hues and pleasantries.
I am not abstract but my lungs don’t quake
with the facts of air and the thrusts of life-
I am reality. Independently so, I am reality
perched on the back of a featherless bird and the flight takes wind of my throat and sets me on fire.

I’ve not had a powerful love that moons me hollow or jades me pale like the blistered stars that hangs on too long to something too dark, I’m not depressed but indefinitely so, I do not feel too happy or too sad or too anything. I am a stranger.

My emotions are not too stark or too raw, they linger. A little longer than yesterday’s Jack and I burn just a little darker than
this morning’s sun. I am awake only for this moment and the moment after that, my eyes will close and I will drift sallow into a putrid shade of hollandaise yellow.

like eggs benedict, a poached
egg wobbly as it sits. Covered in hollandaise
sauce, spooling on his plate. Spilling
over the sides as he ate! Runny as
his nose the snowy winter he ran

a fever and had a cold. There was a big tear
in her, running like crimson sheer pantyhose,
from her crotch down to her toes. Runny
as the Colorado river. Against the pines

and mountains she's a sliver. Runny as
her hazel eyes. As the tear ducts fill
she cries. It drips like dew drops pearling
on her lips. Runny as drains collecting

all the rain beating down from the sky. Like
the juices in mom's baked apple pie. After all,
she was his honey. But amber sweetness
heated under the fire is hot and runny.