Food Poems
Briefly It Enters, And Briefly Speaks
by Jane Kenyon
I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .
I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .
......
We Refugees
by Benjamin Zephaniah
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
......
In The Neolithic Age
by Rudyard Kipling
In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt;
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.
......
September On Jessore Road
by Allen Ginsberg
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go
......
Autobiography
by Nâzım Hikmet
I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart
......
Lemonade Time
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
summer's golden hot
auntie's made cool lemonade
front porch nostalgia
flowers all the day
in mauve orange and yellow
playing in the yard
lemon meringue pie
and sunflowers are nodding
......
A Sunshine Bazaar
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
A lively church bazaar is on the avenue today,
In the house of the Lord, happy children play,
So much is going on, there is so much to see,
Like many hues flowing, in the house of memory.
Hot lunches and baked goods are here for sale,
Like myriad summer days, vivid blossoms prevail,
Old and young enjoy the raffles and the games,
As sunset going down, its vibrant smile retains.
......
Luscious Wine
by Robert Ippaso
A silken drop nectar refined,
Delicious, smooth, it’s taste sublime,
Worshipped and revered in times of old,
Bacchus it’s God, his hand-maidens bold.
The Romans swilled, the Greeks imbibed,
The British drank, the French prescribed.
The Church just called it Christ’s own blood,
Believers flowed as if by flood.
......
Qabuli Paloa
by Precious Whispers
Out of love and sometimes bleak
do they create me to existence.
Together with my colleague,
Who's lying there in a distance.
The ear-splitting sound of pottery
Cutlery all over the place.
And I – I was sat upon the corner.
So I wouldn’t escape, just in case.
......
Spice
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
pumpkin spice coffee
or mulled hot apple cider
october magic
pecan pie muffins
cinnamon hot chocolate
as the red leaves fall
white november days
eggnog in the afternoon
......
