Thanksgiving 2014 a Menu Poem by Geoffrey Gatza

8/10/2019 Thanksgiving 2014 a Menu Poem by Geoffrey Gatza

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Pisan Carrots | Thanksgiving Menu-Poem 2014Copyright © 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced withoutthe publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

BlazeVOX [books]Geoffrey Gatza

131 Euclid AveKenmore, NY 14217

[email protected]

pu l i sher o f wei rd l i t t l e ooks

BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10



Table of Taste Poems

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Table of Poem Titles

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Pisan Carrots

Thanksgiving 2014 | A Menu PoemGuest of Honor: You!

!"



IntroductionIntroduction

Hello and welcome to the thirteenth incarnation of the Thanksgiving Menu-Poem. This year the guest of honor is

you! Yes, you sitting right there reading this, I do mean you. Hip, hip hurray and thank you for your kind support,

your wonderful nature, your continued love for poetry, your willingness to open your life to weird little books like

the ones we make at BlazeVOX! Even if this is your first time here or this is your thirteenth thanksgiving with us,

hurray and thank you for joining in on the fun of a Menu-Poem and I hope you enjoy the celebration.

Beginning in 2002 with a Menu-Poem to honor Charles Bernstein, I have continued this series of texts using a

menu as the basis to honor prominent poets. Being a trained professional chef I wanted to blend my love of food

and poetry into a book-length work that would fit within the ideas of Thanksgiving. In a feast of words, I wanted to

honor poets who have meant many things to many readers in a form that could be presented to everyone. Over the

years we have honored many fine poets, but last year we had a bit of a fiasco, a wonderful poet declined the Menu-

Poem for very fine reasons. So to pick things back up, we decided it was best to dedicate this poem to you, the

reader, and bring you in on all the fun. Hurray!

I would also like to take this opportunity, on a day of giving thanks, to say a special thank you to everyone who was

kind enough to be there for me during this tumultuous year. I had a major health scare over the spring and summer,

which you can read about on the BX blog. That is now a thing of the past and I am happy and healthy once again.

The outpouring of support was something that made my wife Donna and I feel just grand. So to say ‘Hurray, I am

still alive’ and to say thank you all, this Menu-Poem is dedicated to you.

This Menu-Poem differs just a touch from previous incarnations. In the past, each poem was set next to a course of

a large dinner. This would be, for example, the soup course or main course with a line or two of text describing

each menu item that would be served to accompany the forthcoming poem. This year, each poem is set next to a

Taste Poem. Since some things cannot be spoken, some events surpass what the tool of language is able to provide,



some things are just known to each of us on an individual level, these taste poems expound on what cannot be

ingested by reading. The instructions are vey simple, to gather up the ingredients and eat them one at a time to

enjoy their flavor, texture and sensuousness and then move on to the next item. Work your way through the lot of

items and there you have it, a taste poem. Then move on to read the poem that is next to it, they are just poem

poems and you are already up to speed on that, so hurray!

And one last bit of information for you before you begin reading. The cover art is a painting by Donna White. It is

a portrait of our dear pumpkin from last year, as he was our 2013 Thanksgiving pumpkin. It was with us for over

nine months and stayed around, until he turned to pulp in late August of this year. There is a poem for him in this

grouping, which I do hope you enjoy. We do miss him terribly and his silly face.

Hurray and Happy Thanksgiving

Rockets, Geoffrey



The magic of sunshine on white metal A taste poem

Some things one cannot say:Gather ingredients together on a plate. Then place one at a time in the mouth.Chew up and enjoy its simplicity and then directly proceed to next item forthe flow and context of the poem.

1) Cold wildflower honey

2) One leaf of flat Italian parsley

3) Slice of a yellow tomato

4) Slice of yellow watermelon

5) Slice of cucumber with olive oil and salt and pepper

6) A thin slice of cold red bliss potato with a drop of fresh lemon juice



On A Raft Blown By The Wind

A taste poem

Some things one cannot say:

Gather ingredients together on a plate. Enjoy the food while spending a contemplative moment on the question.

Food:

Warm Chrysanthemum Tea and Two Pieces of Wintermelon Candy (táng d!ng gu" )

Question:

How does our process of thinking leap beyond our existing knowledge to make new ideas?

Recipe:

To prepare the tea, steep dried chrysanthemum flowers in water just cooling from a boil , in a teapot.

Serve:

Serve a small glass of prepared tea with two pieces of Wintermelon candy on the side



Resplendence

For all the good I do, I could have been a plumber.Steering dreamlike laborers into a corner to remonstrate.

Unclogging the copperworks with these poet handsSeeking gold among the spiders of scum and pubic hair.

The refuse of human detritus piles higher and higher.For all the good I do, I should have been a plumber.

Digging deeper to find, return to the owner, the lost ringDropped down the sink’s drain, hiding in the j-tube

Waiting to reflect light again, making glad the heartsOf the joyless fingers, missing the weight, the responsibility

Intertwined amongst the significant and its signifier. The shine is the most artificial aspect of a diamond.



I offer my thoughts on the continued silence of the dead.

A taste poem


1) Cold Water

2) Warm Water

3) Hot Water

4) Cold Jasmine Tea

5) Warm Jasmine Tea

6) Hot Jasmine Tea

7) A Small Spoonful Of Tuna Tartar

8) A Small Slice Of Seared Tuna



I’m OK now; I must have eaten something that disagreed with me.

Nothing is dead in the house today. Everything as alive as it was beforeFalling to sleep. The dust is a micron thicker and the hair on my headReaches upwards another notch closer to the stars hidden behind theGlowing sunshine. We pretend to be alive when there is no work, liveIn shared bonding moments over food and television shows waitingFor the other to engage in a flashes of sex before we watch a bedtimeDetective show and curl back in the warmth of our day’s reward sleep.

The organs churn while the belly turns to sour bells. The cello lows itself to sleep on the velvet couch lazed.Hoping to lull out dreams of days gone by, whistlestops

And buggy cars roam the deserts of backyard forts.I hope these days remain constant in perpetuity.

A hundred million billion trillion flashes recreatingLackluster, unrelenting peaceable moments in Kenmore.



To all the trees lost in war, I lift my arms and open my shirtas if in tithing myself to the falling rain. I offer my open sores,hoping for a holy purification, or a deadly infectionso that my days of regret and pain shall pass by as easilyas the storm clouds above.

A taste poem


1) A small taste of Wasabi

2) Enjoy the scent of vanilla seed

3) A taste of miso soy broth

4) A slice of Italian Chestnut

5) A spoonful of Lavender Polenta

6) A slice of poached quince in orange and clove



Watching last year’s pumpkin transcend determinism

Even now this cemetery is accumulating. The hills darken. The deadsleep in their blue graves,the grounds having beenpicked clean, the ribbonsfaded, the pinwheels piled at the dumpsteramong wind ripped tiny American flags

as garbagemen come forward for collection:

Now feel tension fail to achieve.Concatenation transpires.

Tears melt into sweat. This is the barrennessof grief; to watch life rotas we move ever forward.



The sleepwalker, now knee-deep in snow, dreams he is transformed

into a landed meteorite, set in place, planted, as an onion in a farmer’s field.

A taste poem


1) A slice of celery

2) A slice of spring onion

3) A leaf of fresh spinach

4) One section of a freshly peeled mandarin orange

5) One strawberry, freshly picked and still warm from the sunlight

6) A drop of raspberry vinegar mixed with black pepper

7) One toasted almond

8) One sprig of Rosemary, to be smelled and savored



Mine is the Sunlight

I saw him clearly, an old man hovering.His oil slick of a selfLooking beautiful,reflecting his wolfMoon courage,frostbit in a rainbow.

Colors smear across the horizons.Motor oil expels on rain puddles,Slowly absorbing into the concrete pad.

Evaporating into a marriage of fire downin Florida somewhere. Looking out at palmtrees swaying in the early rains warning ofoncoming warm water storms. He sat downfor dinner, said grace and unfolded his napkinhands

And said to me, that life was a can of cranberries,Molded into a mechanized horror of a real berry.



You disappeared like a hole enveloped by water

A taste poem


1) Hot chili paste

2) A Slice of Ginseng Root

3) Bee pollen

4) A sprig of dill

5) A Raspberry macaroon

6) Pear Schnapps



We are unable to recognize a dead woman because we hate the weak And the poor. The dead never come around to say hello, so we refuse To open the door. I cannot perceive you anymore, I saw you lying,

Slumped over in the street. Only you were not asleep, were you?

You were face down in the road, resting, lying and waiting.I imagine you with that toothy, interested grin gleaming. Disgrace.My heart cries, my mind ebbs in aches and pains. This is the griefOf the peaceful, peacefully resting while you were asleep in death.

I, in my dark home, keep seeing you there, dead alone. Our moonlight Was jealous of my leaving the scene. We did not a thing but witness

You passing. I was with you in my imagination. I believe I took you homeIn a cedar box and a clean cotton washing towel. We do not make it happen.

We washed your body with scented oils. We decorated your body with lilacs and gardenias. We hoisted our voices to a god who rejected you while you were alive. We sang sad songs of brave artists who stated all the ideas that made you alive.

I see you lying there, slumped over in the street dead.I consider why there is no synonym for the word you.

If I pray hard enough, the myth of Jesus comes to mindOn my beads I pray you that will rise again revitalized.

This morning the sun dances in observance of Easter and You still wait to be removed. Taken from the street and nowLie on last season’s grass. Thursday you were obviating, today

You are among the honored dead memorialized as a sacrifice.

I vowed to the stars above that I would take your body home.

I vowed to my grandfather’s spirit that I would pick up your sleepingBody, bring you to the side of the road, damn you for your disregardOf all things human, and with a slight stroke, caress your cheek

while you passed on.

I did nothing but come home and think fine thoughts while I drankInexpensive whiskey. Smoked my mind to sleep while you rested onCold black tar, an asphalt bed, waiting for me to come and save whatEarthily remains congealed on the path towards my home. I sang.



If you come to my home I will gladly give you a gentle libation. We will sing songs of nations that are no longer nations. Special Times with tons of water under fallen bridges. We sing old songs

And think of ways to lie to ourselves that we are fine upright folks.

As time goes by we hum the old songs. We try to carry our headsOn our shoulders. We must remember that sighing is only show.

As time goes by we recall old lovers with regretful souls. Seagulls. We met the moment you died; we are forever joined in victory.

We are recursive blights on society. We deserve to be hit by cars. We are not like you, dear reader. You can survive the everyday

Deaths of sleeping America. We are all asleep at the wheel. Driving Toward Wednesday, the day of the blood moon eclipse. We drown.



And so we are born again new. New waters rise from saltlands once desert. The salt becomes sugar and the ravens become doves. We weep no longer. We sing in joyous praise for all life and all things living. All dearly beloved,

We clasp our hands to one another’s chests and feel a beating heart beating. Warmed by the blood of living beings and glory over glory we are still alive. Alive by forgetting our past deeds and previous lives we are born yet again.



The orange plumes of everydayness

have nothing more to give,Ever since the plum days have past.

A taste poem

Some things one cannot say:Gather ingredients together on a plate. Then place one at a time in the mouth.

Chew up and enjoy its simplicity and then directly proceed to next item forthe flow and context of the poem.

1) Champagne Granny Smith apple sorbet.

2) One slice of black truffle

3) A small spoonful of celeriac puree

4) warmed goat cheese with tarragon

5) A slice of champagne-poached Asian Pear

6) Passion fruit mixed with Grand Marnier



We Are Here

Because we are hereBecause we are hereBecause we are hereBecause we are here

Because we are here we are here

we are here


Because we are here we are here

we are here


Because we are here we are here we are here




To be placed on the menu of my last meal

A taste poem


1. Ice cold strawberry

2. Dip rest of strawberry in melted Belgian milk chocolate

3. One leaf of tarragon

4. A tablespoon of goat cheese

5. Cold grilled beef tenderloin

6. Half of a boiled, chilled Peruvian purple potato drizzled with olive oil and sea salt



Geoffrey Gatza is an award winning editor, publisher and poet. He was named by the Huffington Post as one of The

Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry (2013). He is the author many books of poetry, including Apollo (BlazeVOX2014), Secrets of my Prison House (BlazeVOX 2010) Kenmore: Poem Unlimited (Casa Menendez 2009) and HouseCatKung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children (Meritage Press 2008), He is also the author of the yearly ThanksgivingMenu-Poem Series, a book length poetic tribute for prominent poets, now in it's twelfth year. His visual art poems havebeen displayed in gallery showing. OCCUPY THE WALLS: A Poster Show, AC Gallery (NYC) 2011 occupy Wall StreetN15 For Ernst Jandl - Minimal Poems with photography from the fall of Liberty Square. And in, LANGUAGE TOCOVER A WALL: Visual Poetry through its changing media, UB ART GALLERY (Buffalo, NY) 2011/12 Languagefor the Birds. Geoffrey Gatza is the editor and Publisher of the small press BlazeVOX. The fundamental mission ofBlazeVOX is to disseminate poetry, through print and digital media, both within academic spheres and to society at large.He lives in Kenmore, NY with his girlfriend and two beloved cats.

Thanksgiving 2014 a Menu Poem by Geoffrey Gatza

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