Dada Poem  ♦ Ten of Diamonds ♦

 What better place to craft Dada

than a Chinese restaurant!

A little one

with an open kitchen

and a red Formica-covered counter.

4 tables

&

16 chairs.

Placemats that declare

you

a

monkey,

a dog,

a snake

according to the Chinese calendar

&

the year of your birth.

My senses are filled,

my plate runneth over!

The smells,

the sights,

the sounds:

CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP,

TING TING TING TING TING TING

SSSSSIZZLE  SSSSSIZZLE  SSSSSSSS

IZZLE!  GLORIOUS,

glorious echoes

make a Joyful Noise!

Clipped syllables permeate the air

with Ng.

Gratingly beautiful

like rusty windchimes

and I can't help but see the windchimes

in my Lo Mien:

n  

o     c

o     a    c

d     r     a    o

l      r     b    n    s

e     o    b    i     p

s     t     a    o    r

      s     g    n    o

             e    s    u

                         t

                         s

all stick-skinny.  CHOP CHOP.

Mama Waitress,

with happy-wrinkle smiles

will always have pink

plastic barrettes in her iron locks.

I depend on her to look like this.

Papa Cook will flash fry

my chicken wings:

WOOOOOSSSSSH!

with one eye forced closed by the smoke

from the cigarette

perpetually clenched between his teeth.

And I depend on him

to continue doing so.

O – this practice of his violates a law,

a State Law,

as surely as Dada violates poetry.

Long life Papa; long life Dada.

I'm enchanted,

they are enchanting,

and my dinner

is delicious.

© P. Gomes 2003  - from The Dada Deck of Poems