Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

In times like these, I think of you –
Great Chef Gaston D’Astaire
who can create food poisoning
with such elegance and flair

There’s E. coli in my spinach
and mad cow in my steak.
Avian flu — my chicken dinner
and red tide in my clam bake

Salmonella mayonnaise
served with the pork tartare.
potato salad nicely left
two days uncovered in the car.

your kitchen smells just like a dumpster
behind a chinese restaurant –
it’s easy to eat all I can
when there’s nothing I can want.

but really, you cook rather well –
in fact, that’s all you do.
If you had more than one dimension,
there’d be more poems about you.

If you could make the distinction
between food and biochemical war
Gaston, I think even you could be
the next Food Network star.

Until then, I do request,
because I think it simply rude,
that you refrain from your attempts
to serve me what you claim is food.