Cantaloupe

And then, enters a cantaloupe which restores faith in all melon.  So sweet, wet, ripe.  But not overly.  Perfect.  So completely satisfying, you want to tell  your friends to rush out and buy one as you know it too will be splendid.

And this is where poetry enters.  You want to share ripe words with friends.  Those few written this morning to honor spent tulips, knowing "spent" is not "rotten."


On Malisa's photo of Gabriel's birthday tulips

Chance & soil
brought these
tulips their wine-
cup contour.
Apply time,
they surrender --
beautiful
& perfectly
spent

Hummus

Homemade or store-bought.  With carrots, on crackers, and best yet -- on petite boiled potatoes.  Can poems be store-bought?   I think I have taken a few of those home and not happy with their taste.  Far too sweet.   Too doughy.  Lousy shelf-life.

Crows

Crows -- black as yesterday's chocolate cake -- uneaten.  Although I have eaten metaphoric crow before. But this is really about two art pieces converging, conversing, and emerging.   From two paintings, a poem happened. From black ink, a tree filled with crows.  As only a poem can, those same crows migrated  to a solitary tree -- a few leaves, birdless.  That's the migratory path of poetry.

Carrots

Carrots are one of my return-to-foods.  Return-to and enriched from knowing them early on.   Comfort food.  Carmelized by the grace of olive oil.  Add black pepper and fresh hard cheese.  Add walnuts.  Add pasts.  Comfort beyond comfort.   What is comfort beyond comfort in poetry?  The sound of the poem in the mouth and how it tastes in the ear.

Besides, color matters in both food and words.  

Boxes

Yesterday, a pastry chef brought 5 chocolate cakes all frosty, sweet, and richly dark to a volunteer banquet.  There wasn't a box in sight.  When you open the next box, which poems do your eyes eat?  When you seal a box, which poems, stored.   And how to mark the box?

Pantyhouse

A relic?   Bare legs are in.  What's a relic in poetry -- flowery language dripping in intense emotion without a slip of a smile?  And in food?  Foods come and go speaking of Michelangelo.

Smoked dates

Yes, smoked.  Stuffed with goat cheese & walnuts on a bed of balsamic vinegar  -- all warm and quite confident in taste & texture.  A model for a fine poem, I'd say.   Why?  Because the taste is unmistakeable, balanced, and unusual.  All the elements work without strain.

Wedding cake

Frosted and hyper-sweet is the wedding cake. Tasted or untasted.  Rarely anything but white.  Some poetry is also over-the-top sweet and sugary.  I avoid both as I ask, why a wheel of brie didn't become the traditional cake of union?

Sweatbreads

Rarely does your dining partner know from which part of the body come sweetbreads.  Rarely does your dining partner know much about line breaks and why they excite you.

Soft and hard -- commingle.

Occasion

On an occasion an occasional poem is writ to honor, celebrate, commemorate.
On an occasion certain foods are entertained.  Often with toasting.  Words keep an eye on food.

Once I called myself a food-friendly poet.

I still am.

Mushrooms

Certain words which sound mushy are not.  The same is true of particular foods.  Sit back and name all the mushrooms you can.  You are so close to a poem, you can almost taste it.

Sprocket

Where is the sprocket in a poem and what is being moved forward?  Letters as teeth.  Every poem is tastable.  

Of course, garlic is the sprocket that moves taste forward.

There you have it -- poetry, garlic, and sprocket.  Who knew?