Poetry Gong - Poem 19: A Found Poem

June Cleaver Explains Sex to a Group of Future Homemakers: A Found Poem from Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home


An empty stomach is not conducive to beauty.


When long, slow cooking
is required
it is often
best to use a double

boiler. The dishes
most popular are not those complicated
with a vast number
of ingredients. Instead, those remembered
with pleasure and desired
often are the simple,
easily prepared
recipes. Put solid

fresh whole
tomatoes
in boiling water for just a minute—
then into cold
water to have them
peel easily—then
chill
in refrigerator.

Poetry Gong - Poem 4

Advice from a Caterpillar While Washing Breakfast Dishes


The caterpillar questioned me
hanging from the spider plant
in my kitchen window,
a wretched height for dangling.

I shrink from his glassy gaze,
grow bold with my strangled admission:

I do not know who I am.

My son strolls in with a pigeon
behind him, his sister with a snake.
Chicken and spaghetti?
they suggest the usual supper fare.
Clearly culture is in order.
I drop the mop

(am I still the same person as before?)

leave the pancakes on the plate
crusting in sugar-free syrup,
surrey to the Indian restaurant.

Welcome little family
to the hookah patio.
Inhale the cumin wind
relax in a bowl of pad thai
swim through the noodles.
Climb onto our spicy shores
nap on a cushion of naan.

Hand to mouth
food as divine. Fingertips
only, if you please.
The task at hand,
how to get dry again.
We must never speak of spoons
or forks. Clean fingers only.

Avoid the roots and subterranean
vegetables. Spare the cattle,
enjoy the dancing sheep.

Mommy wants you to have fun

.

You can impress your friends
with our secret language:
chana, atta, toor, ghee.

I pray you’re small enough to think

this is an adventure

.

We are saffron warriors.
Off with heads of lettuce.
it is rough being a child
of a poet, forced to eat foreign
cuisine. Through a cloud
of smoke we exit, hop a bus to McDonalds,
mash French fries between greasy lips.

NaPoWriMo #10

Pre-Planning My Funeral

Have the party in my backyard
on a day with a slight breeze,
no, make that a stiff breeze,
the grass not green but crisp, yellow,
with just a hint of renewal.
I would like my daughter to troll the crowd
with her pink plastic microphone, shouting
three minutes to bedtime!
A little alarm is good for a funeral,
lighten the mood. I will want a good band.
A trio of high-stepping, fiddle playing girls,
wailing melodious about the man they should have married,
the cowboy who dropped his Stetson to earth
on his way to heaven. Be sure to send Jesus an invitation.
He doesn’t have to show up in costume.
Maybe He could stand in the crowd,
dressed as my only long-haired boyfriend,
the one with a motorcycle and a passion
for kittens, Chinese take-out and sightless women.
There will be food.
Casseroles.
I’d like the dinners-in-a-dish served
by a cluster of June Cleavers,
decked out in pearls and plaid aprons.
At the end,
as the chanteuse reaches her high note
a murder of crows can carry the amens
to the clouds,
along with plaster casts of my arms and hands,
silver rings and bangle bracelets blinding the mourners below.

The deer ate all my tomato flowers

Recipe Daily - To Be Read to the Rythm of Knife on Seasoned Cutting Board

"Be adventurous in your selection...choose colors and varieties that are
unfamiliar to you. You will enjoy immense pleasures in the exploration."
- Gary Ibsen & Dagma Lacey of Organic Heirloom Tomato Seeds

Begin cutting your tomato into small chards.
Marianna's Peace,
Julia Child,
Sunset's Red Horizon.
Inhale your tomato with great force.
Big Boy,
Bigger Boy,
Biggest Boy.
Step out into the wide, wide world
out the front door,
past the lighted doorbell.
Write a poem on a chunk of wood.
Plan to pray a little.
Respect your fear of fire
and all manner of things hot.
C'est tres chaud, n'est pas?
Ask a neighbor to set your words alight.
Blaze into tomorrow,
into your flourescent-bulb kitchen
with spirit,
with knife,
with tastebuds renewed,
tiny black seeds burning holes
on your tongue.