Here are two very old fast food poems from my first book. They were
probably written around 1971. I think I've written elsewhere about food,
but I can't recall for sure.
"Colonel Sanders" as an Auschwitz for chickens
plucked chickens as far as the eye can see
a mountain of parts on the other side of the showers
the place stinking of chicken shit
and the accountants
somewhere
_________
I eat in Howard Johnson's because it gives me a sense of eternity
all over America there is one slice of pepper in the salad
all over America there is one blob of tuna in the salad
all over America there are two halved eggs and a quartered tomato in the salad
somewhere in a factory an assembly-line turns out salads
computers have worked out the proportions of celery and mayonnaise in the
tuna
it's like the whole country was a giant prison messhall on a skimpy budget
so much for lettuce so much for meat
along the highways of starvation
blighting the landscape of expectation with the discovery that it's all the
same
and even the sanitation is deceptive
America stares at my hair across the counter
Howard Johnson's suddenly I'm crying
the whole of my sorrow swells like muzak
the cars grazing peacefully in your corrals
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