Mooncake

Summary

The web content is a poetic ode to mooncakes, celebrating their cultural significance and sensual enjoyment.

Abstract

The webpage features a poem titled "Mooncake," accompanied by an audio recording, which delves into the cultural and historical narratives surrounding mooncakes, often associated with political intrigue and romantic legends, such as Lady Chang Er's celestial journey and the use of mooncakes in covert messages to overthrow governments. The poem shifts from these myths to a personal, intimate desire to savor the mooncake's rich flavors and textures, emphasizing the speaker's yearning for the delicacy's traditional ingredients and the sensory pleasure of its consumption. The author, Chris Mooney-Singh, invites readers to move beyond the legends and indulge in the simple joy of eating mooncakes, culminating in a moment of poetic reflection on the beauty of the night and the moon within his grasp.

Opinions

The poem suggests that mooncakes are more than just food; they are entwined with stories of love, power, and rebellion.
The speaker expresses a desire to experience the mooncake in its purest form, appreciating its taste and texture without the distraction of its historical and mythical associations.
There is a sensual undertone in the way the poem describes the act of eating a mooncake, likening it to an intimate and indulgent experience.
The author seems to value the traditional aspects of mooncakes, including their design and ingredients like red dates, black bean paste, and lotus seed paste.
The poem concludes with a reflective note, emphasizing the poetic and emotional significance of the mooncake, transcending its physical attributes.

a poem with audio

The legends are always about politics and sex like lady Chang Er who swam to the moon to cool the anger of her emperor husband. Or another tale tells how rice-paper messages were baked into sweetmeats to unseat a government. Yes, Mr President of the Republic people still offer mooncakes in autumn.

Putting aside all the high-flown myths let me steal you away from the old cake shop and its sexy legends tonight. I simply want to eat you, Mooncake, with or without your jade rabbits, three-legged toads, moon-lady designs, and cinnamon-tree groves baked on top.

I want all of your red date smoothness, your black bean paste possibilities, your eclectic garnish of nuts. Let’s get fat on double egg yolks solidified into lotus lard. Let me tear you open like red cellophane, un-lid you and reach inside, let me bite into you hard with force and determination, let me search out your moistness with my tongue.

Now all that matters is the poetry of the night.

Holding the moon here in my hand

As well as publishing several collections of poetry and appearing regularly in fiction anthologies, Chris Mooney-Singh’s most recent short film Looking for Mr Gelam was released in Jan 2021. See more of his work here.