Molecular Gastronomy

 

 

 

No content, says the slim chapter

on Happy Epicureans,

the coterie of madmen now walking shadows,
a mile away from work, with a windowless office

and two houseplants,
an azalea and golden pothos,

to help him breathe, three deep breaths please.
 
But there’s nothing to this kind of purchase.
 
Nothing to this acquisition
of pleasure in utter spades,

one token and trembling totem

after another, always setting up shop

in a dreamscape so allegorical,
even the truth runs along parallel tangents.
Nerval is on an endless headroll
down the equally rolling green plains.
The green is emerald because that’s the colour

of the magician,  
her dreamweaver’s ring.

The ring face is faceted,
small smile showing, against sundown light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nerval says you have the look of a mathematician.
Something distinct and distinguished, yet bizarre.
An atomic materialist, a Pythagorean at heart.

 

No content, says the document in Pages,
no reassuring message or reminder to do this
and to do that, over there and everywhere,
no words or distant echo—no hello.

 

Nerval has smashed the black olive with the cleaver.
Nerval does the same with the black garlic.
There’s no lack of distaste to the blunt movement.
The drama — upward, then sudden falling arm,
as if every end meant to be so installed, so scripted.
Nerval says no to the charcoal, black sesame too.

 

No goodbye, no sculpted language to say
there’s a reason to collaborate on ethics today,
let us all stay indoors, leave consequentialism behind,
the dirt and dishes in the sink, forget the sound
of the dripping faucet, forget how it’s already afternoon,
forget there’s new dinner to be made,
the strudel from yesterday still good to eat.

 

 

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