The Poetry Marathon

Toxic Necessity (Food Prompt) – 14/24

the irony- to be prompted to write about food.

i have barely written about anything else for years.

you’d think, i’d run out of things to say, about the very act of eating

it is necessary for my life

but still – so toxic

i say that weight is a see-saw,

i’m always on the down end,

or weight is an anvil,

and i’m crushed underneath it.

that fat isn’t a feeling,

it’s three letters, but

god, is it everything

this food-vacuum where eating sucks life from me

and all the years of bingeing, and rearranging my same self into different bodies-

i will never stop writing about food

not once

there is no greater enemy than a toxic necessity

It’s my favorite

It appears before me and I have become ‘Gollum’

With shoulders hunched and weary eyed.

I watch as its placed before me.

A steaming pile of pasta drenched in the most exquisite bolagnese.

 

I scream in victorious joy that echos throughout the land.

It is mine, my precious. With such delicious cheese!

Oh but I know their tricks, these Hobbits are crafty.

No one shall steal my spaghetti.

 

I push the bowl of grapes between us.

Hour 14

Food

I prefer the bland ones, the incredibly sweet ones
The cream buns, the Swedish-style saffron buns
The ones that crack and snap and the ones that stretch for miles
Lightly baked crackers or even the seemingly vile
Food is all food to me
The slightly burned ones, the incredibly tangy
The deep fried chicken in unbelievable flavorful harmony
The most aromatic ones to the strictly appetizing
Inedible-y delicious cake dough and the golden crust rising
Food is all food to me

#14bis – The Great Mother is an Angel

The Great Mother

Is an Angel

Going to heaven

Carrying your heart

In a bottle

 

It’s still alive

And well beating

Inside the crystal –

– clear glass

Of the jar it’s in

 

Everybody wants to see

The heart beating in a glass jar

But nobody asks how it could be

A heart on its own

Without any other organ

 

The Great Mother is the only one

To know the answer to that mystery

She always know what’s going on

In the great barnyard of love and drama

The Great Mother is generous you just have to ask

 

And she tells you

Everything she knows

 

The Great Mother

Is an Angel

Going to heaven

Carrying your heart

In a bottle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem #11

Tower of Babel

No como arroz, y el no come frijoles.

He didn’t understand my English,
and I was afraid to use my Spanish.

What if we quit being so afraid
and just did our best to be understood?

St. Francis was on to something.

Fourteenth poem

A milkshake can taste like a dream
Made right, they’re more than they seem.
Share with your love if you’re able.
Like making love on the table
And sometimes it’s better with whipped cream.

Jazz Man

when I grow up I want to be a jazz musician,

play the piano fast, infuse my tunes

with Afro Cuba and relate stories of

my days on the road and in old Havana when

gangsters, writers and gigolos all

wore mustaches and you couldn’t

tell the farmers from the intellectuals but

they all loved Jazz Americano and I would

sit on my bench and drawl my faux

southern accent into the mic, smile and tell

the woman how much I liked her

frivolous little hat with yellow bird attached

or lots of veiling that was too warm to wear in

this tropical island club but it would catch my eye

red haired woman trying to look blasé, drinking

something sweet filled with fruit, skirt tight

displaying lots of leg, mucho promise of

later tonight with the artist, me the piano player

hiding himself away in Havana until Castro and the Fidelistos

took over one American dream dried up and

where can I go with this angle all worked out

my accent perfected and my repertoire complete

from the American “Hit Parade” and a Cuban

tune to show my attempt at authenticity

designed like the creative guy I was to sway the women

and tell the men I, too was macho, not an untalented

swindler afraid to go back home and start again.

DONUTS

HOUR FOURTEEN

POEM # 14

24 HOUR

POEM

MARATHON

DONUTS

Donuts need a hole,

A dozen my goal.

Favorites have glaze,

Eat four to amaze.

Pastry my down fall,

I can eat them all.

Half dozen to start,

They soon will depart.

Cream filled to try,

On my list to buy.

Better than cake,

Nothing you bake.

Breakfast or a snack,

Buy them by the sack.

Donuts without a hole,

Not donuts but a roll!

Written by Carl Mann

The kurlman

6-13-2015

Black and Red and Blue

Such innocent white blossoms call to children

Staining fingers, cut, scratched, swollen

Black and Red and Blue

As they wrestle Mother Nature for pie filling

 

 

by Karen Sullivan

Form: Free Verse, Color Poem

He

He said

He was for real

He wanted to court me

He would not cheat on or hurt me

He lied