I wrote this poem a while back in free verse form and had it workshopped. The participants in the poetry workshop liked it well enough, but Lucie Brock-Broido, who ran the workshop, suggested I put it in sonnet form.
C(LOVE)
The evening’s air is sweet with new mown grass,
I know what lies ahead. The candle’s lit,
we are alone. I touch with tenderness
your bulbous form, peel back your papery skin,
reveal your glossy flesh, as sleek as pearl.
I gently pull apart each clove, I press
you to my lips and am enflamed--your oil,
your pungent scent, your promise of a sauce,
a broth, or piquant aglio olio dip.
I chop and crush, you satisfy my need,
surrender all your fire, your creamy pulp,
your lusciousness. O little passion bead,
I’ll always keep you near to me, that we
may ever share this allium ecstasy.
--S.K.
9 comments:
I love it!
I've often heard someone refer to a passion for cooking, but you just demonstrated it beautifully!
I doubt if anyone has ever before written a love poem with lyrical eloquence to a clove of garlic.
Wonderful! You brought the first smile to my heart on what-started-out-to-be an unusually dreary Sunday morning.
Thank you so much.
____________ Impatience ____________
How much time passes idly who knows?
One wonders if productive hours compressed
Would leave most Men of Conscience distressed ––
Indignant and embarrassed at what grows
Hampered by dull duty and inertia ––
And ever-present impulses to waste
Time pursuing vices they’ve embraced ––
Expeditions feral west of Persia?
Taken by surprise we often find
Our time is drawing swiftly to a close.
Well past our prime we learn we have been blind.
Awareness comes just when we want to doze.
In frantic rush to rip away the rind
The fruit is bruised; its beauty never shows.
~ FreeThinke
I understand cooking as evocative of poetry. I penned a bit the other day while cooking Italian. I offer for amusement purposes only
her hair was like well boiled spaghetti
her eyes deep and rich red like a sauce
immediately! I was in love already
I just wondered how much she cost
her meatballs were large and well breaded
a little Parmesan stuck on her lip
"Fifty bucks," she said, "if youse intended"
and smacked herself wetly on a hip
now, sometimes my breadstick thinks for me
and sometimes I make it behave
but I envisioned her passion like a hot garlic sea,
amongst her Amber Grain I would wave
...a poem unfinished. just an example of crinking beer while cooking can do
Thank you FT, for your poem. It's a classic: "Taken by surprise we often find/our time is drawing swiftly to a close"
Reminded me of Nobel Prize-winning poet, Sicilian Salvatore Quasimodo's poem entitled, "Ed e' subito sera" (And it's suddently evening.)
okjimm,
The coffee I was drinking came out through my nose and all over the desk. My family wanted to know why I was laughing so hard.
I let them read you poem, so now they know.
Work on it. Very, very funny.
And thank you SF, for reading the poem.
How kind of you to call it a classic, Ms Shaw. It started out as a determination write a sonnet on the acrostic How I Hate to Wait. The thoughts that emerge while attempting to stick to a strict, confining -- some would say archaic -- form often surprise me. I'm glad it means something to you.
Perhaps this sort of mental exercise might be similar to using a Ouija board? In the process described the writing becomes "automatic" -- sometimes. Sometimes it quickly reaches a dead end.
I love Okjimm's opus just as it is. Perfectly constructed, and perfectly funny. Too much editing might spoil the cooking.
Keep writing, jimm. Try not to agonize. Just DO it.
I am a lover of anything garlic. Your poem does eloquend justice to this gem of an herb.
Shaw...be careful with coffee and poems...look what happened with Donal Rumsfeld...
There are known knowns.
These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld February 12, 2002 at a press briefing
FreeThinke...thank you. I try to write poems while cooking. I am currently torn between a verse about oatmeal or a sonnet in honor of meatloaf.
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