London Swall'wing: Part III (Poetry Tuesday Edition)

Walkers

Too many cars too close
along the road to Trotsky's house
in Coyoacán.
It's hot. I wanted to go to London.
Sweaty-wet baby on me, we stop
at a gas station for water
and antiperspirant. No omnibus in sight.
I'm hungry, too,
and afraid to eat street meat. I
speak too much English; I feel rude.
No biscuits, no shortbread.
AeroMexico doesn't serve cookies.
And now, at the coyote fountain
We've walked too far
to see the bullet holes that were Trotsky's.
The baby won't even try our
helado de arroz con leche.
Blisters pulse. My bandaid slips.
I long for rain or fog.

• London Swall'wing: Part II
• London Swall'wing: Part I

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Poetry Tuesday: Crabby No Crab

Crabby-No-Crab wanted crab.
Crabby didn't get some.
For seasoned chips, they weren't that bad,
But seafood content? None.



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Poetry Tuesday: The Patient Muffin

Pepitas don't look like
Pepitas taste nice but
A pumpkin muffin is soft and waits
Solidly on your desk, and waits
Warm flavor pausing, waits
For you to remember.


OR


A Noiseless, Patient Muffin

A NOISELESS, patient muffin,
I mark’d, where, on a little office desk, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to adorn the cluttered, flat surrounding,
It launch’d forth fragrance, fragrance, fragrance, out of itself;
Ever unreeling it—ever tirelessly speeding scent.	5
And you, O my Stomach, where you sit,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of work,
Ceaselessly eating, nibbling, snacking,—seeking the foods, to ingest them;
Till the hunger you still have be fill’d—till your breakfast's anchor holds;
Till the pumpkin-y muffin's strings catch somewhere, O my Soul.

 


[Pumpkin muffin from Whole Foods, via Kevin.  Thanks, Kevin.  Sorry, Whitman.]

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Poetry Tuesday: Fairer than Fair

Oh!
Fair Trade Cocoa, you
Spicy thing, you
Enticing dring
k:

I will mix you with milk.
I will take a photo of you in my cup.
I will smile at the farmer pictured on your packaging.
I will be there in the morning.

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Poetry Tuesday: An Imaginary Tantrum

Un-True Story

Juice box straw broke the camel's back.
We both say please.  The shorter, cuter one wins.
She's sunny; I feel my own rumble.
Balled hands could bite the dirt in rage.
Shod feet remember how to stamp.
Someone over thirty is shouting in my head:
"I want juice, too!" She calls it, "Elmo,"
And isn't even three.
So that must be me.

Poetry Tuesday: Bon Appetite [sic]

[Here's a puzzle of a poem (puzzling in part because I no longer remember why I wrote it) from over ten years ago. It's young and indignant and not as deep as I imagine I thought it was when I wrote it, but I offer it now in its original form, olives and all, because you deserve to have a tangentially food-related Poetry Tuesday again after all this time.  Also, have I ever eaten salmon florets?!] 

Bon Appetite [sic/k]
words mean something.
words, mean, still emit -- and might mean lips express.

How dying is language, simplified and shaved.
Tongues empty, witless words don't quench these thirsts.
Dining on air, my thoughts turn to once redwood-hearty martyrs of vocabulary,
long-forgotten forests of phrasing as disappeared as ghosts
and only present as memory here, where each course of conversation
serves up newly misspoken delicacies and pairs the pungent, distinct flavors
of meaty meaning with the wrong wines.

Once, when someone's cruel teeth bit down a sturdy word,
a tree of meaning, or a grove of language tumbled slashed-and-burned
tall or strong or slender as its syllables designed,
axing out the sense of wood and sap
and spitting slivers from the oral mill as waste,
replanting followed; so language grew in its season
and tall at its leisure
and rich in its flavor.

Once.

But here has been eaten a meal which is misunderstood
and the real taste of each course, artful and distinct as salmon florets,
lies undigested in your gut, unsavored, where words sadly mean something.

They silently mean something.

(And the olive on a saltine you
toss the guests who attempt your
conversation goes unnoticed as
the pale, sprouty shadow
of the oak you ripped up
to make one, mispronounced
toothpick.)

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Poetry Tuesday: How Green is My Banana?

Oh my my my, no green bananas
Ah! My heart is green, my legs and hands
Are under-ripe and thick with starch Oh
Smoothie like my tongue, it slides
So slides so. Vitamin and win!
I'm E! I'm me! I'm multi me!
T(w)o calicum-um-um it's time.
It's breakfast time. It's newly mine.
It's me. I'm morning fruity me,
Banana green and free.

Poetry Tuesday: Around the Office, This Time of Year

At the office, Christmas looms, Hanukkah
Lingers in the rustling
Bags of sweet or spicy crispy chocolate
Pretzels cookies bread and nuts.
They're on the table, 'round the corner,
Perched upon Reception's shelf --
Cardless or carded, whisp'ring "Merry,"
"Happy," "Best" and "Eat Me Now."

BUT my vacation days call, too.
They say, "Use us. We don't roll over anymore,"
So, even as the treats call, "Linger."
I must flee from rolling chairs.
I take my leave from keyboards, lunch breaks,
Scheduled time. I've errands of my own.
I've celebrating naps to take.
I've fairy lights to ponder.

So I am gone now, into home and respite,
thinking of those sweet remains. They're
showing up in tissue, tins and
paper sacks without me there.
I know too well,
I see so clearly -- quickly, that's how
Tasty gifts of goodies from
The friendly folk I work with
Disappear, are eaten -- thoroughly and well.
It's as it should be, in this season,
But, alas, I won't be there.

Poetry Tuesday: Dried Pears and the Newness of Everything.

pears appear rare
and, rarer, their table,
their chair, and this bowl
of aforementioned pears
how pronounced, seen whole.

[Paul's gift of a dried pear slice from Terrafina in Brooklyn was a revelation. Soft and thick, with a granular, chewy center, they contain real notes of pear on a backdrop of natural sweetness and vanilla. Thinking about how beautiful an experience eating one was, I was reminded of the above, imperfect poem from 1999. I still know what I was trying to get at, but it remains in revision (unlike the dried pears).]

Poetry Tuesday: Mommy Complex

[Mother's Finger - Blueberry Flavor. Thanks, Paul!]

Maternal/Infernal--Digital/Edible

Mother, your finger, your
Blueberry finger points,
A long, white packing peanut
Sweet and purple side to you
A blander melting white rice-ness:
Blank slate Cheeto.

Mother, I do not know you
I cannot hold your hand.
Your fingers broke off like lizards' tails
As I tried to keep the clasp.
Your useless gestures are rolling
Around in my mouth.

Mother, you are removed,
The bright fruit of you is fleeting,
The sigh and styrofoam remains.
I absorbed your indexes, have finely hidden
Any knowing I could do.
To chew is not to capture.

These
Blueberry fingers of Mother are
My own. I have eaten them
All.

Poetry Tuesday: Lunchcrostic

An Acrostic

Lasagna rests in portions, pudding waits
Under five minds' eyes and five pink plates.
Noon comes and I have pulled my portion near,
Chanting thanks to Jane, who cannot hear.
Heating in the microwave expands the cheer.

Cool-whip beckons me; I am in Noodle Town,
Lunch Club sweet'ning these five days, and counting down
Until my Friday turn, knowing that I must plot.
Brick, David, Dave, and Jane will share the lot.

Poetry Tuesday: "How Hot Is It?"

[We're deep in the steamy thick of summer here in NYC. Yesterday, I found myself home from work, sticky and cranky, eating butterscotch chips out of the freezer while all the fans in the house whirred at top speed. I was suddenly reminded of the first line of a poem I wrote in college, a little over ten years ago (during the month of January, oddly enough). Allow me...]


so hot the sunlight is wet - he, limp,
a rooftop landmark; turn left at the sunbather
from 3C-heavy head,
masses of hair groundcover pale flesh

He is his own roof garden.

moist ripeness, dewed with sweat.
hosed-down-reduced to
sodden melted sugars, pinkwhite fat
sopping starch, matted hair and tarpish skin

Nothing sprouts here, where this mess lies
Supine out of soil
Green plastic weave of lawn-chair raft
floats, mildewed, in that sun.

Poetry Tuesday: Trepidation, Mexico (a series).

[Today's Poetry Tuesday post is in honor of a new blog, Haiku Lunchbox, which I read about today on my Serious Eats feed and immediately added to my RSS reader. Welcome to the food-poetry blogging world, HL!]



Memories in dust,
A piñata's leavings wait.
Snack jail - tempting fate.




I'd be a sucker.
When was I in Mexico?
Horror show on sticks.



Such friendly dressing,
So eyes cry to mouth in vain.
A will dances, ill.

Poetry Tuesday: Bastille Day And...

Happy Bastille Day, everyone! And happy anniversary to me and to Dan, if I may self-celebrate for a moment.

As of today, I've been married for 8 enormous years to someone pretty great, whom I've known for a gigantic 17 years. This year, we celebrated with sausages, wine, braised cabbage, crusty bread, and homemade strawberry shortcake (above). I used Nigella Lawson's recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess, but added coconut because my mouth wanted coconut. Love that woman.

Then, at some point, because it is Poetry Tuesday, after all, I thought of the poem I wrote the summer Dan and I started dating (1994. eeeeeee). The occasion was his getting his braces off, which is perhaps less of a special day than an 8-year wedding anniversary, but it sure has improved his snacking. Here, wait. Let me share.


ODE TO ORTHODONTICS

Flitter-flutter through the night...
What's that?! A bright and numbing light.
Announcing a bar or a mud-wrestling fight?
No, sir: 'tis the tooth-glow of young Daniel's bite.

Whither wanders he in the gloom?
Why, thither - hear: he sings a tune
and whistles lovely songs of doom
with sparkling teeth (at a jealous moon).

Behold the boy with teeth aglow.
He wanders hither, to and fro,
bedazzling dentists like a pro,
exhaling toothpaste with each blow.

But hasn't he a mouth of tin?
Oh, nay - no more! But once his grin
could metal-shiny contests win.
A new day dawns above his chin.

So sing the song of our brave lad
who battled monsters myriad
to make his friends and loved ones glad
to view what great clean teeth he had.


--------------------


Food-related memories with Dan over the past 17 years include:

• The time I drank straight pickle juice out of the jar just to gross him out. It worked.
  
• When Matt and Dan and I played some sort of game involving piling couch cushions on top of each other and then sitting on the person at the bottom -- and both of them called me "couch taco" for a few months.
• Trips to Mr. Bulky's in the Manhattan Town Center (mall), where I would usually get chocolate "bridge mix" and Dan would get something gummi.
  
• Purchasing 64-oz slushies in refillable cups at the ShopQwik, covering the cups with grip tape, and keeping them in my car to use for dirt-cheap, enormous refills for at least a year. I think we were a large part of the reason this size was discontinued.
  
• The morning we made pancakes at my parents' house and Dan thought it would be interesting to add instant pink lemonade powder to the batter. It might have been interesting, but it wasn't delicious.
• Grilling pizzas with Dan's dad in their backyard. Now those were delicious.
  
• All the double-Thanksgiving and -Christmas meals I got during the years our parents lived in the same town (miss that!)
• Raiding my scholarship hall's "24 hour open kitchen" together when Dan would come to visit me on my side of campus (mmm...frozen cookie dough hockey pucks!). Eating extra bagged lunches (from his cafeteria) in his dorm room in front of the TV (Tekken on the Playstation) other nights.
• Midnight-or-later doughnut runs in Lawrence, KS -- to Joe's or that other place. What was that other place called? Anyway, Dan likes apple fritters. La-di-da. I like actual, working-class doughnuts. Okay, I like the froofy ones with cream inside, too.
• Sun tea, sun tea, sun tea! And grilled cheese. And carrot cakes.
  
• Holding our annual "Welcome Summer; Goodbye School" BBQ (now on hiatus) and Holiday Cookie Party (still going strong) for almost as long as we've been together. No one cleans a bathroom while you (meaning "I") freak out about when the guests are going to arrive like Dan.
  
• Making 5 gallons of gazpacho together the night before our wedding in 2001. Plus a small batch without cilantro for Vincent.
  
• Enjoying turkey reubens and kettle chips from Hana Foods late-night on our current living room floor.

Thanks for all the years of finishing the food when I'm not hungry anymore, Dan! Over the next eight years, I plan to tackle the problem of you not liking hardboiled eggs.

p.s. I wanted to post the photo of us (taken in 1995 or 1996 at Laura Z's party) in which we are sitting on a couch and I'm eating cheese out of a spray can (by spraying it on my finger, which I guess seemed more sanitary), but in deference to Dan's potential embarrassment (at changing hair/jewelry styles) I've refrained. Still, anyone who comes over to our house should take a look at it on our fridge. It's pretty amusing. And boy, do we look young.


(photo by Dan)

Poetry Tuesday: Hot Dog Hot Dog

Hot dog hot I want a drawn dog
but I also want to eat you hot dog
Hot dog how you grill there getting
crispy and you sit there penciled in
Hot dog but dog I am brimming
(I already had a turkey reuben)
-- Hot inviting; it's hot-dogging me
-- Extra hot inclusive 'cause its free
Such hot neighborhood such good dogs
So dog kind and true and here arrayed
Hot dog hot dog two ways thank you
Thank you hot dog artist cooker man
I'll take mine home as hot dog friend




(Thank you, Joseph! This is an awesome project. I love my drawing.)

Poetry Tuesday: Too little, Too Late.

So you think you can keep
Last night in. I smell it seeping out of pores.
I hear it creeping from your innards' doors.
I sense your liver's like a weeping sore.
Tic Tacs are not quite lies, but
They cannot save your hide.

To most of your neighbors, you are rotting flesh.
They're sliding in their seats, backing away on feet,
And peeling out tout suite from all that heat --
That death spinning 'round your breath's hot meat.
Tic Tacs are little guys, but
It's nice you've tried.

Poetry Tuesday: Scent Memory

In my skin I am a small grey box
of scented gum. I say OPEN HERE
and still you hesitate to open me

and I do not open there. I open
elsewhere.

Along one careful, high-strung edge
I open. Inside I am old incense,
a shop selling velvet dresses, the
cinnamon sticks we chewed. I am in college.
I held your hand and felt protected.

We sat in movies and did not speak;
I borrowed your shirt and you could not wash it
because the smell of me was fine.

So, I'm a little square. I taste perfumed.
The color of me waits patiently.
I can be hard to take.
And then there's softening, and sighs to chew,
and you and I just do not last. We almost never were.
Our time is up. Or things are stickier, at least.

How do I resist rewarding you while becoming everything you wish?

Poetry Tuesday: Dan went to a fancy art party and all I got was this lousy herbal water.

You, the coatless, who are going home when the sun sets,
Drink this. Drink this in your
Cold home, surrounded by your
Reheated macaronis and consolation lipsticks. Sniff
And you may clean your fixtures with the smell.
Astringent hydration; there's frowning inside.
Vanilla and lemongrass fight over you,
So you must not be lonely. But you are
Lonely. As mint has deserted you all.
Oh. The situation's muddied.
There is something in your water.
It is meant to be there but it should not be there.

Your tongue is angry at you now.
The two of you are going to argue.

Poetry Tuesday 4/14/09: The Do-Over.

[Due to a wilderness issue (as in, I was in a wilderness), this poem could not be posted on Tuesday (see these posts). All due apologies.]

Chocolate Caramel Matzoh Career Paths

Matzoh millionaire
No flat cracker tax!
Dipped twice in caramel gold
And chocolate's dark coins

Matzoh model
Wafer thin and brittle unclothed
Snaps less easily when dressed
In sweet, candied fashion

Matzoh Emcee
Jokes classically, if slightly stale
Thick, glossiest hair style
Unmoved by applause.

Poetry Tuesday Limericks: I don't care if the rhyme is right as long as the food is good.

There once was a girl born near Berkeley,
Whose camera took pictures too murkily.
And so she has naught
Of the pudding she brought
To the FEAST (Hope you don't find this jerkly).

------

(photo by Dan)

A girl from Dubuque, overheard,
Said, "For snackfoods I'm kind of a nerd."
"And to watch Rescue Dawn
I need pop-off-cob corn."
After that, she did not say a word.


(photo by Dan)

------

A young miss who has known two Manhattans
(So smoke on your pipe and put that in!)
Is happy to share
Several fries, if you care.
But she needs all her nuggets and napkins.