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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Food Poetry

This week's prompt at Poetry Thursday was to share poems about food. I have a few food poems. I posted my poem about Fresh Bread on an early Poetry Thursday. Click if you want to see it, I don't think I had very many readers back then. I also have a couple of poems about eggs that I rather like, but as they are being published shortly, and the magazine has first publishing rights, they will have to wait. I've started another poem in response to the prompt, but it isn't ready yet. So, I have nothing of my own to share this week (unless you click the link above). Instead, I am posting something by one of my favourite New Zealand poets, Lauris Edmond. Yes, the title mentions roses. But it's about food, really.

Those roses

Roses, the single scarlet sort,
open at the throat as if for
coolness, sprawl at the window;
you heap on my plate a pile
of potatoes, steaming and small,
smelling of mint. 'They're
basic,' you say as we go at them
lustfully, 'they grow by the door;
you have to chase meat' - and I
notice a certain vegetable poise,
not striated like the fibrous
deposits of a more strenuous growing
but smooth, opaque; placid testimony
to the sufficiency of flesh.

'Of course you do have to hunt - '
I say, thinking of hopeful
burrowings in the soil, wresting
from the clutch of its black fingernails
each creamy nugget; and we agree
on that; we're a bit languid,
munching more slowly as each
pale pod splits open and fills
us with amber warmth - one flesh
sturdily giving itself to another.
Those roses, too, they lean over us,
and the squat black pot gives
off its dull gleam, grinning
crookedly from the stove.

- Lauris Edmond

12 comments:

Emily said...

Ummm...I really liked the bread poem. It makes me want to look at the sky with crusty bread and butter.

Paul D. said...

Gulping blue sky..what a great image!

Tracie Nall said...

I like it!

Michele sent me!

Kay Cooke said...

Lauris Edmoond was such an amazing poet.
Bread is a great subject for poetry isn't it? There's a good denise levertov poem about bread too ...

mareymercy said...

Love both poems - "Fresh Bread" is wonderful!

Visual-Voice said...

both are marvelous!

jzr said...

That bread poem made me very hungry!! Love both!!

paris parfait said...

Great poems, both. I especially like the bread poem. Well done!

Deb R said...

I enjoyed the poem you posted today, but what I enjoyed even more was going back and re-reading your poem "Fresh Bread." I love that one!

January said...

Thanks for reposting "Fresh Bread." Both poems were perfect for Poetry Thursday.

Madeleine said...

love the bread poem....food is such a fantastic prompt for poetry isn't it?

i love the second one too.
good choice.

:)

Anonymous said...

Like the flower open at the throat and the earth with black fingernails. Nice reversal.