The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
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A grasshopper chirping and clicking his legs by the flower pot, sees me, sits up, rolls his eyes, “Come on,” he says to me, “A dictatorship is coalescing. Even I know—Let’s call it what it is: Fascism. Has a stun gun turned you into statues? Gather your forces,” he says, “Come on humans! All of you—Yes, you too, Cecile. Now! In this moment! Wake up! Jump on it! Now! You teeter! You know nations can explode in a flash! Listen! All I see you doing is waving arms, making gestures, filing papers. And still, nothing is coming together as this oligarchy solidifies like a glacier. And you? Puzzled. Positing solutions. Talk. Talk. Stuck in glue. Questioning as you chatter, chatter. Rally now. Stop them. Time’s up! Don’t use now to veer on the side of caution! Wake up! Democracy! Ours! Don’t let X and his minions rule our world! You can do it,” the grasshopper says, as he zips into the garden. Waves. “See you tomorrow.”
Cecile Earle taught English at UCB and Bay Area Colleges. She also focused on Latin American affairs and social justice as editor with the Center for the Study of the Americas in Berkeley. She has published poetry, essays, memoir, and short fiction, and she has won awards for writing on immigration, nomadic migrations in Northern Kenya, and climate change with, among others, Soul Making Keats of the National League of American Pen Women, Bay Area Poet’s Coalition, Word Peace, and the Mendocino Writer’s Conference.
Additives have been debated for years with bills proposed, then denied. Just this week California (Assembly Bill 418) has tried. Again. To drum up support all while the Dollar General can no longer afford to sell eggs—a source of dense nutrients. Aisles instead full of fruit chews, colorful candies, cookies, cakes. Oh my—Gigantic swaths of shelf space, all prime. Products under fire for “generally safe to consume” promises with limited review. Hot Tamales and Skittles. Cupcakes and ice cream, too. I’d like to know, I say as I chew my microwaved stew, Is it too much to assume the
Foods Water Poetry
we consume are safe to drink?
Jokes on you, my colleague explains, craftiness on all corners Kraft mac and cheese, too? I ask. Love you, but yes, she says –
phthalates, plastics involved in processing, plus fat content
loopholes in laws persist more foods make the danger list Nerds? Double Bubble Twist gum? Not good news Open the cabinets but be warned – there’s propylparaben in caramel chocolate and high sugar in Nestle Quik. Red Dye No 3. lurks in
protein shakes instant rice and potato products, and cake mixes.
Rare is the boxed life form that doesn’t make the graph or score in the game of Skittles, Screams, Sell More
Who. What. Where. When. Why.
The economist and poet in me wants to know. With 3,000 Red Dye No. 3 data points and
that’s just the beginning—is relief in store?
Trolli Gummies and Trail mix, too. Titanium Dioxide can be found in cupcakes and ice cream. Underreported and overconsumed.
My graphs are in toil. My plotting doomed. Values collide. Voracious marketing blooms ways of fudging ingredient lists with words I can’t spell or repeat
Zero room for error. We wait. We philosophize. We think.
Is the safety of our food supply too big a drink?
Author's Note: When ABCs Collide with Plot Points
As an econ major, I’ve long been interested in prisoner dilemmas, graphs that map (seek to match) supply and demand, and hikes of varying natures. On levels both macro and micro, I’ve wrestled with data and wondered, what is too much to ask. Of consumers. Of suppliers. Of truth tellers. Of faulty logic deniers. It’s a delicate dance. Public health and behavior as much commodities as any other letter that becomes targeted then charted as a supply meets demand number. Analytics morph in ways analogous to philosophy and experimental poetry. Personal choice a waltz subject to underutilized form and (sometimes) overindulged scorn. Ethics aside. No matter. Whether graphed in pencil and ink or AI-generated ChatGPT-think, I still believe that assuming one’s food supply is safe shouldn’t present an oxymoron (enjambments and plot points undenied). Instead, I accept realities, however baffling, I cannot change and bid farewell to a handful of foods (and ABCs) I used to love.
