the testimony is in
cry out hear hear

a shame that
the newsstand for a penny
a new stand
what a nuisance

what shall it be atom man
hear hear they see you cry


mother's tomato soup
grows ever cold

I am a royal potato whose shape is a perfect oval,
My fame is so widespread that everyone knows me from the stars to Mars.
This uncontrollable charm I exude is so novel,
that even the queens and kings before me grovel.

Even though this tale may not seem real,
I would still appreciate if you would go to my palace just to say hello.

These days, times have been hard, for the invincible McDonalds has
been winning countless victories.
My young comrades from the north have been skinned and stripped to pieces.
My amazing xylophone that would make the zealous moon jealous has been
burnt in the fire and trampled in the mire.

We must push for the rights of potatoes
Just like the tomatoes
Whose fire and concept of equality
Has driven hungry humans to see reality.
If it was them in the frying pan,
Would it still excite them to ignite
The fire that burns so painfully bright?

everyone agrees that you're
tasteless and flavourless
when it comes to
choosing the ingredients
to make the dough for love.

similar to a slice of
cold, leftover pizza,
hated like pineapples
as the toppings,
slapped on like a can of
expired tomato sauce,
cut away like
unwanted crustings,
and being as cheap as
a low-quality mozzarella.

definitely
loved by me
but purely hated
by the entire world.

I
Through vines indeterminate
Red cherry eyes peeped,
And spied two forms,
Fleshy pink and brown
Trees, tangled at the roots,
kissing in the canopy.

II
The garden was our
Discotheque, the sullen
Moonlight reflected
On the Black Beauties,
Twisted black mirrors,
in the garden of joy.

III
O, to again be mov'd
By your heirloom lips,
I'd give it all, the earth,
the sun, and the water.
A sacrifice: my Homesteads,
for a home.

IV
Soil runs dry.
The sun scorches.
Plagues run rampant.
We burn, we are sacked
and pillaged, and destroyed.
Roma, Roma, Roma.

V.
Maybe the rain,
Or sweet shade,
Or gentle sun,
Or simply the need
To be so defiantly
alive, will bring us again,
And I will drink you up again,  
Brandywine.

Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.

The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.

The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.

The art major sighs and
stirs.

She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.

It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.

Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.

The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.