Whipping Cream by Marianne Hales Harding (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

WHIPPING CREAM
by Marianne Hales Harding

I am waiting for the magic moment when liquid turns to solid(ish),
when the cream’s experience changes from being the fat behind the scenes to the glimmer in a child’s eyes.
I turn the whisk again and again in faith,
filled with hopes for a new life
for the cream
and the creamer
(who looks for evidence of magic in tiny things like whipped cream
and hangs her hopes on the idea that wishes can suddenly come true
just when you are ready to set the whisk down)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marianne Hales Harding is a poet and playwright whose work has been produced in theaters from New York to Seattle and published in both online and print venues (such as Everyday Mormon Writer, Brooklyn Publishers, SheKnows, and ePregnancy). She mentors emerging writers as the cofounder of the creative writing open mic Speak for Yourself in Provo, Utah, where she lives with her two daughters, two birds, one dog, and at least one mouse (unless the recent anti-mouse measures  were effective).

Journeybread Recipe, poem by Lawrence Schimel (Mythic Poetry Series)

Journeybread Recipe
by Lawrence Schimel

“Even in the electric kitchen there was
the smell of a journey.”
–Anne Sexton, “Little Red Riding Hood”

1. In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add wolf.

2. Turn out onto a lightly floured path, and begin the walk home from school.

3. Sweeten the journey with candied petals: velvet tongues of violet, a posy of roses. Soon you will crave more.

4. Knead the flowers through the dough as wolf and child converse, tasting of each others flesh, a mingling of scents.

5. Now crack the wolf and separate the whites–the large eyes, the long teeth–from the yolks.

6. Fold in the yeasty souls, fermented while none were watching. You are too young to hang out in bars.

7. Cover, and, warm and moist, let the bloated belly rise nine months.

8. Shape into a pudgy child, a dough boy, lumpy but sweet. Bake half an hour.

9. Just before the time is up–the end in sight, the water broken–split the top with a hunting knife, bone-handled and sharp.

10. Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and left on a grandmother’s doorstep.

11. Go to your room. You have homework to be done. You are too young to be in the kitchen, cooking.

IMAGE: Red Riding Hood and Wolf apron, available at zazzle.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lawrence Schimel (New York, 1971) writes in both English and Spanish and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, including two poetry chapbooks in English, Fairy Tales for Writers and Deleted Names (both from A Midsummer Night’s Press), and one poetry collection in Spanish, Desayuno en la cama (Egales). He has twice won the Lambda Literary Award (for First Person Queer and PoMoSexual: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality), as well as the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Spectrum Award, and other honors. His stories and poems have been widely anthologized in The Random House Treasury of Light Verse, The Random House Book of Science Fiction Stories, The Mammoth Book of Fairy Tales, Chicken Soup for the Horse-Lover’s Soul 2, The Incredible Sestinas Anthology, Weird Tales from Shakespeare, and many others. He lives in Madrid, Spain where he works as a Spanish->English translator.

Corned Beef and Cabbage, poem by George Bilgere

CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE
by George Bilgere

I can see her in the kitchen,
Cooking up, for the hundredth time,
A little something from her
Limited Midwestern repertoire.
Cigarette going in the ashtray,
The red wine pulsing in its glass,
A warning light meaning
Everything was simmering
Just below the steel lid
Of her smile, as she boiled
The beef into submission,
Chopped her way
Through the vegetable kingdom
With the broken-handled knife
I use tonight, feeling her
Anger rising from the dark
Chambers of the head
Of cabbage I slice through,
Missing her, wanting
To chew things over
With my mother again.

SOURCE: “Corned Beef and Cabbage” appears in George Bilgere’s collection The Good Kiss (The University of Akron Press, 2002), available at Amazon.com.

PHOTO: “Sliced cabbage” by Brian Boyle. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: George Bilgere has published five collections of poetry, most recently The White Museum, awarded the 2009 Autumn House Poetry Prize. His third book, The Good Kiss (2002), was selected by Billy Collins as recipient of the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous awards, including the Midland Authors Award, the May Swenson Poetry Award for his collection Haywire (2006), and a Pushcart Prize. Bilgere has received grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Commission, and the Ohio Arts Council.
His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Fulcrum, and the Best American Poetry series.
 Bilgere lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he teaches creative writing at John Carroll University.

O Cheese, poem by Donald Hall

O CHEESE
By Donald Hall

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh
Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;
the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton
that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.
O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses
that weep continually because they know they will die.
O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses
fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.
Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;
Pont l’Evêque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler
decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;
and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.
O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses
that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.
O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,
eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.
Reblochon openly sexual; Caerphilly like pine trees, small
at the timberline; Port du Salut in love; Caprice des Dieux
eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;
and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.
O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,
O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,
O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky couple,
this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donald Hall (born 1928) was the first poetry editor of The Paris Review. He served as United States Poet Laureate (2006-2007) and has been the recipient of many award and honors, including Guggenheim Fellowships, designation as Poet Laureate of New Hampshire (198401989), National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry, and the National Medal of Arts (2010).

Leftovers, poem by Jack Prelutsky

LEFTOVERS
by Jack Prelutsky

Thanksgiving has been over
for at least a week or two,
but we’re all still eating turkey,
turkey salad, turkey stew,
 
turkey puffs and turkey pudding,
turkey patties, turkey pies,
turkey bisque and turkey burgers,
turkey fritters, turkey fries.
 
For lunch, our mother made us
turkey slices on a stick,
there’ll be turkey tarts for supper,
all this turkey makes me sick.
 
For tomorrow she’s preparing
turkey dumplings stuffed with peas,
oh I never thought I’d say this —
“Mother! No more turkey… PLEASE!”
***
Find recipe ideas for turkey leftovers at theculinarychase.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: For over 30 years, Jack Prelutsky’s inventive poems have inspired legions of children to fall in love with poetry. His award-winning books include The New Kid On The Block, The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, The Frogs Wore Red Suspenders and If Not For The Cat.  He lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Carolynn. Visit him at jackprelutsky.com.

The Poetry of Potato Salad by O.P.W. Fredericks

THE POETRY OF POTATO SALAD
by O.P.W. Fredericks

Making a good bowl potato salad is not unlike writing a good poem. The selection of ingredients are important to both. When selecting the potato there are many varieties, russet, white, red, and yukon gold to name just a few, are like selecting the right words. Do I peel them or leave the skins on? Do I expose the meaning immediately, or conceal it in a thin layer that must be savored for all its flavor. Are they in big pieces or small, bumpy or smooth, old or new?

For the basic ingredients of potatoes and words they have to feel right, but they must be given the opportunity to sit a spell and be spelled right. How do I want to dress them, plain with mayo, salt and pepper, monorhyme, strophes and periods; or do I add the extras; celery and commas, onion and Ottava rima, hard boiled or Haiku – scrambled or Spondee? Do I use eggs and Enclosed Rhyme at all? A little mustard with your Meter might be nice, or sliced pickles of poetic diction, but do I want a sweet sestina or the dill of dactyls? Paprika you say, well why not some prose, if for nothing else, color is pleasing to the eye. Capers in couplets? Why not. Crumbled bacon is always nice as is a comedic ballad.

Finally there’s the presentation. Enjambment and enjoyment, how does it taste? Do you savor their flavor on the tongue as you chew, or do you swallow them greedily intent to get your fill? Are they deserving of study to appreciate the subtle complexities in the flavor of the words?

It’s up to you.

Visit the author’s blog at opwfredericks.com.

ABOUT O.P.W. FREDERICKS (in the author’s own words): I was called the nursing profession in the fall of 1976. After thirty-two years of caring for the sick and injured at the bedside and in other capacities, I chose a new path, that of writer and poet. As I embark on this new journey I continue to walk the path of nurse, though in a lesser capacity during this time of transition. I cannot help but be influenced by the teachings from my professors, but more so by the people I have known as patients and fellow human beings.

Watercolor: “Feta potato salad with garlic, chives, and tomatoes” by Debra Morris, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find a recipe for Feta Potato Salad at thecornerkitchen.com.