Thursday, January 26, 2012

Indigestion

I’m having a writer’s moment.  It’s like that song by King Crimson, where I’ve carried this around with me for days and days - first, actually, for months as an inchoate writers prompt, then more months as a rough outline with a few pages of notes, and then as an ever-growing and them somewhat-shrinking work of garbledigook that has monopolized my writing time for a few weeks.  I have no idea anymore if I should be horribly embarrassed even to post this, but I have to get it out of my head and my notebook so I can move on to something else.  Anything else, really.  If working on this poem taught me anything, it might have to do with having too much of some good things. 

And for the record, this is based on a true story but it didn’t work for me that the real-life dude was a racecar driver so I changed him to a messenger.  Let’s see how long before the lawsuit hits. 

Indigestion

This world can surely ladle blandly
so I believed it owed me something
Dust my tongue with fiery cayenne
gird my grace with hearty flatbreads
quench my lungs in rich aromas
simmered long cast-iron hours
One small morsel of perfection
opens up a world of meaning
that could never be discerned
in all the porridge ever boiled
This was my philosophy
through it life acquired meaning

By my wits and wheels I wandered
trailing stale paper wakes
repeating like a bad chorizo
till my bag and soul were empty
I dieted on fresh cracked blacktop
but my soul was starved and thirsting
not for chow to clog my maw
but for flavors, scents, sensations
egg yolk, kale, lemon, saffron
sweetbreads, sausage, sole and capon
panfried, sous vide, nitro-frozen
extracts, foams, infusions, glazes
cork and plaster, wood and china
trays with fifteen kinds of salt
that was where my truth resided
all the rest was mere existence
and even then, just barely that
and I but touching it by tangent
till one day I brought a message
that would change my life forever

The address didn’t ring a bell
but as I breached the service entrance
something clicked.  This wasn’t just
Another dreary business office –
I had crossed the threshold of
Paul Bocuse’s Giardet
Three stars from the tire dealer
My every pore drank in the dreamscape:
there, the kitchen; there, the house
where sounds and smells and tastes and sights
sublime beyond imagination
filled the air six nights a week
I stood there in my sweaty knickers
grasping for a hint of what
this place could truly be and do
and had the manager sign off
that he’d received his sheaf of stuff
I turned around and walked back out
although it ripped me up inside
But as I hunkered on my scooter
I resolved that I’d return
and this time I would do it right –
sailing through the patron’s portal
not to leave till I had sated
all of my unnumbered senses

Even this determination
soon shrank to inadequacy:
I could tell already that
my dream would leave me unfulfilled
I’d be dissatisfied again
before I even reached the street -
Exiting, my every step
would leave me hungrier for more
That exit had to be an entrance
Perhaps you’d call it an addiction
I viewed it as appetite
and mine was well and truly whetted

Spartan years ensued.  I worked
long hours, slept but short ones
All I did was bide my time
impatiently, audaciously
When at last I’d earned my nut
Le Guide Michelin decreed
three-and-sixty three-starred restaurants
spangling three continents
I would dine at each of them
one night apiece for three-score days
and three for luck
Too long had I put off my pleasure
to permit one night to pass
except in gratifying my
desire for the world’s best meal
I mapped my route and bought my tickets
made my many reservations
salivating at the mouth
of my omnivorous rebirth.

Late in May I hit the road
and that’s when things began to blur
I took on western Europe first
Pretty quickly it got tricky
A couple courses into supper
I’d forget where I had started
Who’d served me that bacon salad
Had I had that soup tonight
or was I mixing up my meals
They’d set a proud dessert before me
I could barely look at it
I woke each morning overhung
still digesting last night’s marvels
This was tougher than I’d figured
even so, some tables shone
The Hof Van Cleeve, Dal Pescatore,
Enoteca Pinchatorri
Those were meals I remembered
even as the others stuffed me
indiscriminate as headcheese
I began to lose my traction
tongue exhausted, gut chaotic
I’d bit off too much to chew

Forty suppers still before me
Next to go on my agenda
Was a place that, even in
comparison to all the others
stood alone, a pinnacle
atop the rocky Cala Montjoi
a labratory of a kitchen
Adria’s alchemic realm
His gels and spheres were works of art
Emulsified, inverted, decon
-structed, multifarious
foods unknown to normal mortals
magic was their bill of fare
I was now vouchsafed a place
among the angels to partake
of their ambrosia

When I roused myself that morning
Something didn’t feel right
My belly roiled, overwhelmed
By nineteen superhuman meals
Eaten one upon the other
But of more significance
I felt a rankling reluctance
All my years of eager waiting
Ill prepared me for this effort
Facing supper at El Bulli
I just was not up to it
but I had a reservation
So I’d force myself to eat
I entered bravely, took my place
at yet another gleaming table
in the back a corps infernal
bent to wreak their art upon me

For a while I surrendered
reveling in new sensations
pushing me beyond my limits
Soon enough I’d had a crawful
only seven courses in
another twenty-five to go
every one a stupefaction
beggaring imaginations
not to mention appetites
of gastronauts far more intrepid
hungrier and readier
than I to handle what was coming
Each new plate they set before me
threw a gauntlet to which I
responded with decreasing valor
A feast I’d dreamed about for years
had turned before me into an
endurance test, an act
of gustatory self-abuse
each mastication abnegating
all that I had held most dear
The richer, madder, more creative
were the dishes I confronted
the bitterer grew my despair
My supper juggernautted me
it crushed me like a kalamata
Till at last the serving staff
relieved me of the final plate
abandoning me to my questions
What had I done; What happens now

And then a voice fought through my stupor
someone at a nearby table
recognized me on my quest
A journalist, she wanted to
catch up with me when I had finished
my three-star world dining tour
Could she contact me and see
how I had managed to endure
another six more weeks of feasting?
As she spoke my heart collapsed
against the bloating of my gorge
I realized I couldn’t do it
one more meal like this would kill me
part of me was dead already
I had eaten my aesthetics
and they gave me indigestion
I was engorged with emptiness
Yet this woman sat there smiling
asking Could she call me later

With some lame excuse I bolted
spat my dreams into a napkin
ran away from my undoing
ignominious and shamed
found the door and disappeared
The night air hit me like a tonic
lightly salted, rich with vastness
superseding appetite
My journey was at its conclusion
never went back for my bags
just took a taxi to the airport
caught the first plane to Geneva
crept into my darkened bedroom
prayed that I could sleep it off

They sent out tracker dogs in case
my corpse had fallen off the seacliff
Handy though that would have been
I found existence hard to shake
An animal despite myself
borborygmus woke me up
to face a future where my meals
hold no promise, work no wonder
When I sit now at a table
food is all I see before me