AN ABCEDARIAN ON FOODS I USED TO LOVE

by Jen Schneider

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 

titanium dioxide
potassium bromate
brominated vegetable oil 

phthalates and 
propylparaben 

Xtra-large Slurpees, too? 

Yogurts with bright red candy mix-ins.

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. 

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

ICE CREAM ACTIVISM

by Alisha Goldblatt

after “The Emperor of Ice Cream” by Wallace Stevens

Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images via The New York Times.

Lick the sins of countries past,

the thrown stone, and gather your pints

in unbleached paperboard, crisp waffle cones.

Sell hazelnut play on words that

signal virtue and decadence, and

slick the tongue divine, smooth on spoon.

Let slingshots rile the bull market.

The only flavor is a flavor of fear.

In the modern white freezer, vats 

blister thumbs from the plastic scoop

whose spring-back lever neatly cleaves the ice.

The Green state, the Holstein cows, the fourteenth star.

Shirtsleeves cuffed, tough and chocolate stained

to show how cold we are, and numb.

Let the melting be violent and swift. 

The only flavor is the flavor of fear. 

Alisha Goldblatt is an English teacher and writer living in Portland, Maine with her two wonderful children and one lovely husband. She has published poems in the Common Ground Review, Literary Mama, and Burningword Literary Journal, among several others. Alisha writes whenever she can and gets published when she’s lucky. 

KNOWLEDGE FROM A POEM

by Howard Winn

Wallace Stevens would have known
what to make of the leader we find
ourselves with the man who is
really the emperor of ice cream
liquid only under certain icy temperatures
and much too saccharine to be permanent
and even true and self-appointed to
lead the selfish and the stupid
with minds that speak to the child-
like desires of self and the race
they believe is the right one to
lead and rule and to kill the
different, who dare to suggest
all human kind of many colors
counts equally in a democracy
that is more solid than ice cream.


Howard Winn has just had published a collection of his poems, many of which have been published in major literary journals. He is Professor of English at SUNY.

RODRIGO TREATS DONALD

by Jonel Abellanosa

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, previously praised and invited by President Trump to come to the White House, said he will not visit the United States during or after his term because the country is “lousy.” Duterte's remarks about one of the Philippines' oldest allies was in response to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who said he would protest if the Filipino leader utilized Trump's invitation. “There will never be a time that I will go to America during my term, or even thereafter. So what makes that guy think I'll go to America? I've seen America, and it's lousy,” Duterte told reporters Friday about McGovern. —Washington Post, July 22, 2017

eye

scream

eye scream

eye scream eye

scream eye scream

eye scream eye scream

scream eye scream

eye scream

*********

********

*cone cone*

cone cone

**cone**

*cone*

cone

co

ne

co

ne

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Marsh Hawk Review, Rattle, Anglican Theological Review, Star*Line, Poetry Kanto, Spirit Fire Review, Carbon Culture Review, The McNeese Review, GNU Journal and Dark Matter Literary Journal.  He has three chapbooks, Pictures of the Floating World (Kind of a Hurricane Press), The Freeflowing All (Black Poppy Review) and Meditations (Alien Buddha Press).  He is a Pushcart Prize and a Dwarf Stars Award nominee. Several of his poems have been published on TheNewVerse.News.

A NOT SO PRECIOUS FREEDOM BITES THE DUST IN BOULDER

by George Salamon

Image source: Old Prison Museum

"Under a new city policy, kids spending their summer days at the city pools may not buy ice cream—the quintessential childhood delight on a hot summer day—because city officials don't think it's healthy."             —Editorial, The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera, July 2, 2016

First they came for the ice cream
And I did not protest
Because ice cream is fattening.

Then they came for the hot dogs
And I did not march
Because hot dogs are carcinogenic.

Then they came for the hamburgers
And I did not shout
Because hamburgers clog the arteries.

Then they came for the customers
Because they do not choose wisely.

And so there was no one left
To eat politically incorrect.


Author's note: With a deep bow to Pastor Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

George Salamon tries to get on with a relatively healthful diet in St. Louis, MO.