The New Millennium Devil's Dictionary - Organic

ORGANIC, adj. Nutritionally sound, to those attuned to the notion that foods grown on farms with labeled chemicals are less harmonious than those grown on farms with unlabeled chemicals, and unshy about exercising their pipes about it. To their great melody, the chimes of the cash registers celebrating the markups on organic produce provide a counterpoint.

I slit open a package of organic mushrooms
While my old chemistry teacher laughs in the wings;
He would love to see me try to eat an inorganic mushroom,
Like the glazed one a girlfriend used to keep on that windowsill …

They slice just like any other mushrooms;
Perhaps a bit grayer, dingier, more solemn
From the responsibility of their chemical-free claims –

There goes Mr. Putnam again.
In his cubicled world,
Purged of advertisers and legalese,
If it is matter it has chemicals,
Elements or compounds:
Though, ionically, they may come without charge.

My cooking is not elementary,
So into the pan the organic mushrooms go.

As the slices sizzle in the onions and the oil,
I see in them a space
Where all I cared about mushrooms
Was one I picked in the forest,
Tan, fat, firm, and unlabelled,
And, having nothing else,
Wondered whether this one
Would be my continuation
Or another I’s beginning.

- Julio Amanito

  - O Ceallaigh

Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.