by Amy Gerstler
Rocket-shaped
popsicles that dyed your lips blue
were popular when I
was a kid. That era got labeled
“the space age” in
honor of some longed-for,
supersonic, utopian
future. Another food of my
youth was candy corn,
mostly seen on Halloween.
With its striped
triangular “kernels” made
of sugar, wax and corn
syrup, candy corn
was a nostalgic treat,
harkening back to days
when humans grew,
rather than manufactured,
food. But what was
fruit cocktail’s secret
meaning? It glistened
as though varnished.
Faint of taste and
watery, it contained anemic
grapes, wrinkled and
pale. Also deflated
maraschino cherries.
Fan-shaped pineapple
chunks, and squares of
bleached peach
and pear completed the
scene. Fruit cocktail’s
colorlessness, its
lack of connection to anything
living, (like tree,
seed or leaf) seemed
cautionary, sad. A
bowl of soupy, faded, funeral
fruit. No more
nourishing than a child’s
finger painting,
masquerading as happy
appetizer, fruit
cocktail insisted on pretending
everything was ok.
Eating it meant you embraced
tastelessness. It
meant you were easily fooled.
It meant you’d pretend
semblances,
no matter how
pathetic, were real, and that
when things got dicey,
you’d spurn the truth.
Eating fruit cocktail
meant you might deny
that ghosts whirled throughout
the house
and got sucked up the
chimney on nights
Dad wadded old
newspapers, warned you
away
from the hearth, and finally lit a fire.
 |
| Fruit Salad (oil on canvas) by James Rosenquist |
I always hated the grapes in fruit cocktail. Not sure why....but I gave up fruit cocktail in the third grade just because I hated those grapes.
ReplyDeleteThe next to go was spam
___ HAPPINESS in HAIKU ___
ReplyDeleteRain on the rooftop
Sea sounds at a sunny beach
City sounds at night
The drip of water
From all the soggy branches
In the piney woods
A kitten's purring
During an afternoon nap
On a shady porch
The breeze in the trees
The rustle of autumn leaves
The sound of silences
My new dishwasher
Humming quietly as it
Eases my burdens
A murmuring stream
The drip drip drip from the eaves
As icicles melt
Rush Limbaugh spouting
Irrefutable logic
In the afternoon
~ FreeThinke
Rosenquist's vibrant painting contradicts the dismal, disparaging spirit of the poem. Rosenquist makes the insipid concoction look downright appetizing –– almost luscious.
ReplyDeleteMy mother never served this stuff. We much preferred Birdseye Frozen Mixed Fruit - strawberries, raspberries, boysenberries, blueberries, and sliced peaches. [I think, if I remember correctly!] Anyway it was delicious when eaten just a little more than half thawed. ;-)
The pears really got to me.
ReplyDeleteThe whole mixture was bland but the pears were the most tasteless.
Processed food became much more appealing if not more nutritious.
Rosenquist made a fine body of work displaying advertising images, FT.
ReplyDeleteI always had difficulty determining whether it was ironic or whether he was celebrating the consumer world.