Sunday, June 1, 2014

Why the Burnt Toast Sings


A hommage to Maya Anjelou and her poem "Why the Caged Bird Sings"



A toast cries out:
"You may come and spread your butter,
Your canola oil
Your margarine
Your vegetable oil in lard spray

You may stand on me and smear
Smear your jam and honey"

For years the toast, the butter the honey cry out:

"You knew and knew nothing"

For years polyunsaturated fats, GMOs
Have been milled and tilled
In to our food chain

The papaya, the olive, the linseed, the corn, the pomelo, the breadfruit, the melon, the grapefruit, the avocado, the tomato, the banana the zucchini

If you will no longer spread the rot on thy surface
If you will bury the past of your chemical infested soil

Come, stand on me!

The Turk, the French, the North American, the Peruvian, the Pole, the Samoen, the Russian the
transgender, the gay the straight,
If you have no shame
Eat
Eat my toast
My butter, my honey
Where no bees longer nest
Eat my butter
From antibiotic-treated cows
Eat my fiber
Containing azodicarbonamide
(Used for yoga matts to make my bread more spongy)

Come, spread your crap on top of me
I will not move nor hunker
I will receive you teeth
To chomp down
From the time of dinosaurs
Chomping, chewing and swallowing
Me

If you fear not and dare
Gaze into my lightly burnt surface
Look into your husband's, wife's and baby's
Eyes
And say
With all sincerity:
"Bon appetit "