Prose poem: The compleat cake
March 12, 2025
The compleat cake
1. Acland Street, Victoria, 1980s
Licking the windows, the cake-shop windows, with their peppermint swirls of galaxies, their new-born stars of strawberry creme; their slices of half-forgotten history lingering on the mind’s tongue. See that poppy seed twist, curled like a strand of DNA? Is it a memory of a 1960s dance, sister of the hula-hoop, or does the warming bite of the seeds take us back past wars to an older Europe, wrapped snug in coats against a so-long winter coming in? My mouth’s history stretched to pink-jammy-rolls and vanilla slices, sunny and seemingly vacant, or simply stuffed with more white. Here I first tasted a sweet warmed with a spicy aftertaste, and sensed that sadness and joy often walk hand in hand, supporting each other like an elderly couple, out for a weekend stroll. My tram-caught Newfoundland, my Acland Street, where abundance somehow whispered of loss to my thought-shy ears. Past the strawberry tarts, open and brazen, calling for business; past the rum baba that tingled like a taste-bell for the dead; past the endless tales of one thousand and one cakes; I rumbled, ate, and paused.
PS Cottier
This is the first section of a three part prose poem first published in a wee collection called “Selection criteria for death”. This was part of Issue Three of Triptych Poets, published by Blemish Books, who sadly, are no longer in business. The other sections of this poem are 2. Politician’s birthday cake, Florida, 1965 and 3. Royal Easter Show, Sydney 2011. I may post them over the next little while. I think I chose the archaic ‘compleat’ as I’d just seen a copy of The Compleat Angler, by Izaak Walton, but I really can’t remember back thirteen years or so! (That’s when I wrote the poem, which refers back to the 1980s.) Acland Street is in St Kilda, Melbourne, for those who have never visited.
The other poets in the collection were J.C. Inman and Joan Kerr. And once again, the illustration was found in Old Book Illustrations, and is by Leonard Leslie Brooke.
Tuesday poem: How I hate you
September 10, 2018
How I hate you
Reality TV, bastard child of documentary and soap opera,
I hate you more than competitors hate the dishes served
up by the other teams; their yucks and carefully edited
smirks are nothing to the pure flame of hate I direct at you.
I will buy one of those little devices to make crème brûlée.
Nay, I shall buy twelve of them, and hang them from
a bandolier, all Sergio Leone, only French.
And I shall discover the producers and brûlée them, irrevocably.
Custard hearted slop buckets are those who reduce
something like food to these fiendish competitions,
and pit like infamous olives the spitting couples.
Let there be an end to these spectacles!
I open a can of baked beans.
I heat bread.
PS Cottier
After lengthy delay, here’s a very slow-cooked poem. Enjoy!
Happy birthday Tuesday Poem!
April 1, 2014
Yes, Tuesday Poem is four years old today, and a what a rambunctious lass she is. Born in New Zealand, she simultaneously exists in Paris, Canberra (and lesser parts of Australia), England and even bits of the United States.
Every Tuesday you can read wonderful poetry at the hub site and the members’ sites. Click this feather and go to New Zealand, for a far more comprehensive explanation of the birth of Tuesday Poem, and a poem (nay, four poems) on a food theme, broadly interpreted.
We all contributed a food related sentence, which have all been stewed together, by clever chef Michelle Elvy (TP Hub sub-editor) along with Mary McCallum and Claire Beynon. It’s all rather like this extract from Dickens:
“‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord smacking his lips, ‘and cow-heel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.”
The Old Curiosity Shop Chapter 18
Regular readers of this blog can probably spot the sentence (or part thereof) contributed by this poet. Think quirk. Think juxtaposition. Think ‘yuck!’.
Enjoy your dinner.
PS Cottier 