Breakfast is not ready

We give the illusion that it comes to plate
Venus-like full blown and assembled
From the sundry stuff that
Is only a step or two away
From the garbage bin. When
Monster mercenary minstrels gyrate
Their ancient Greek hips Elvis-like at
Sounding boards of internal and
External music – the larder to
Barter for some oddly personal hymn
In the hopes they can
Recall the loss

And the gain for shekels
Or worse, pride. How to
Give up that daunted dare
We stare in to solid emptiness
Hoping that we’re not
There like ghosts in a
Mirror, especially a concave one
(convex is better
For purposes of company)
Keeping what we like
Discarding the rest
As one would an interloper
In the bedroom of our love

We cannot say the self
For fear other will hear
But we can talk of nothing else.
To the muse: bad girl,
Where have you been?
Would you like some
Breakfast? She says

You are all in the same boat
A reed basket floating down de Nile
That we entered right after birth
Leaving our family for a better
Life, doomed to wander forever
After the anger of hot youth
Ends the privilege of childhood
With the sad truth we will never rest
Never see home again
We will go through death’s door before our own
But after all the peace of home is
An illusion. One which we hold so
Dear because we fail to truly see
That the park is a battleground
On which we can rest while the
Plants and trees fight it out for the
Sun killing anything around them
With deadly shadow. Which when
The darkness of doubt falls over the
Plate with its ordinary and
Strangely questionable goddess
The substance of tangible illusion
Utters that dangerous word the
Self which is now so plain to see
And naked on the plate and
Painfully absent of vines and leaves
And all the figs, or perhaps an
Apple in the mouth making it
Tough to breathe because we didn’t
Want to talk about it anyway. So
I asked my father, seeing the ripe
And rotten fruit: is this
What you wanted me to eat?