Three Tastes of Home (2025) (texts)
I. At the August Moon
Cup after cup after cup of earthy tea
In reality, more sugar than tea.
Then, the battle begins
over sweet and sticky bones,
red-tinged and mysterious,
an inexplicable addiction
created to appeal to us,
a horde of children
descended from Eastern Europeans
who, forgetting our own
history with earthiness,
Crave that which we think
tastes exotic - the succulent bits,
those clinging nubs of fat and gristle,
so meager but so comforting and
so worth stabbing your sister
for under the table.
Oh, what we wouldn’t do
for just one more bite!
The cooks here know, however,
that nothing is actually
more American –
So out of balance,
and oblivious to
the consequences
of ignoring family
recipes when seeking
some drug that
just might feed a
hunger borne out
of our suburban boredom.
II. Tantalus Walks Up Broadway
Here I am, happily
following my nose up Mott Street
past Wo Hop,
and I think, cool!
maybe this time
this is a good thing,
ya know - so familiar,
all the joints whispering
sweetly in my ear – delectable even.
But no, it’s just another replay
of this fucking endless,
unfolding curse,
sad and eternal and now,
I am getting desperate.
Those cruel city gods
are real assholes, ya know?
and they jack me
back here again and again,
my pockets completely empty,
to pass on by all of
the crazy-good
and tempting bites
that I have ever tasted.
It’s been over a million times,
now, I guess, I trip over
the same curb and
face-plant, but somehow
I never bash-in my nose
‘cause the boss is making sure
I can smell those pork dumplings
Wafting up from Doyers Street
and feel the pain
in every tiny package -
the death-rattle of
my countless first dates,
all those nights on the town,
the hot Julys, the
Christmas Chinese take-out.
But ya know,
Mulberry Street,
is even worse,
that plate of clam linguini
and me just about to
taste that garlic,
when, every time,
I suddenly remember
Crazy Joe Gallo.
It’s always the same
re-run movie about
some guy who
can’t get any,
staring me as the guy,
craving the oracles of
pastrami on Houston,
the pint that smells like piss
on MacDougall,
some donut grease on 14th,
that descent into
the briny deep beneath
Grand Central and
meaty torture at
Keen’s, Joe Allen’s
and Tavern on the Green.
My tormentors cheer
when I finally reach the trifecta:
Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass,
and Murray’s Sturgeon.
They want to remind me that
maybe substituting hand-sliced
family flesh for the nova
in that gift-basket
was not the smartest move.
Then they turn the heat
all the way up
on Malcom X Boulevard,
the roasting curl and crackle,
the drip of juice and spice
so perfect and long-
simmered with spite
that a mortal could
never imagine, but
I just can’t ignore
and…Oh, shit!
back on Mott, again
bok choi in column A
with extra tasty lobster
and black mushroom
sauce fried grandma’s
chicken rice special,
hey – maybe
you guys could
skip it with
all the menus,
just this once?
III. At Townsend Gut
Terrified eyes
fill my pail,
fixed and gleaming
a growing hunger,
wriggling, gun-metal blue.
I count pairs through
tangled eelgrass,
too exhausted to
see beyond the
swelling crowd of
jigging tourists.
Sometimes,
this overripe bloom
of late summer
conjures them and
they wedge into
my prime position
laughing and tossing
every single one
back while I go
hungry, again.
This afternoon though,
I keep my line-caught
tinkers for a
a simple dinner
and witness a
collective instinct,
like the one that
fills my pail,
and does not transform
to resignation even
as it turns
gradually opaque
in this fading light.
Copyright 2025 Eric Chasalow and Suspicious Motives Music (ASCAP) all rights reserved
