10 Best Famous Foods Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Foods poems. This is a select list of the best famous Foods poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Foods poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of foods poems.

• All Famous Foods Poems

 "Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it. I visualized Christ descending into my heart so realistically (I was a realist then!) that I could see Him walking down the stairs and entering the room of my heart like a sacred Visitor. That state of this room was a subject of great preoccupation for me. . . At the ages of nine, ten, eleven, I believe I approximated sainthood. And then, at sixteen, resentful of controls, disillusioned with a God who had not granted my prayers (the return of my father), who performed no miracles, who left me fatherless in a strange country, I rejected all Catholicism with exaggeration. Goodness, virtue, charity, submission, stifled me. I took up the words of Lawrence: "They stress only pain, sacrifice, suffering and death. They do not dwell enough on the resurrection, on joy and life in the present." Today I feel my past like an unbearable weight, I feel that it interferes with my present life, that it must be the cause for this withdrawal, this closing of doors. . . I am embalmed because a nun leaned over me, enveloped me in her veils, kissed me. The chill curse of Christianity. I do not confess any more, I have no remorse, yet am I doing penance for my enjoyments? Nobody knows what a magnificent prey I was for Christian legends, because of my compassion and my tenderness for human beings. Today it divides me from enjoyment in life." 
p. 70-71 

"As June walked towards me from the darkness of the garden into the light of the door, I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth. A startling white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I felt it would consume itself before my eyes. Years ago I tried to imagine true beauty; I created in my mind an image of just such a woman. I had never seen her until last night. Yet I knew long ago the phosphorescent color of her skin, her huntress profile, the evenness of her teeth. She is bizarre, fantastic, nervous, like someone in a high fever. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat before her, I felt I would do anything she asked of me. Henry suddenly faded. She was color and brilliance and strangeness. By the end of the evening I had extricated myself from her power. She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her share in it is a pose. That night, in spite of my response to her, she sought to be whatever she felt I wanted her to be. She is an actress every moment. I cannot grasp the core of June. Everything Henry has said about her is true." 

I wanted to run out and kiss her fanatastic beauty and say: 'June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existance. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childlike pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses"

 In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody murmured, Oh dear, oh dear!
I've discovered the Western Hemisphere.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Well enough wasn't left alone,
And Columbus was only a cornerstone.
There came the Spaniards,
There came the Greeks,
There came the Pilgrims in leather breeks.
There came the Dutch,
And the Poles and Swedes,
The Persians, too,
And perhaps the Medes,
The Letts, the Lapps, and the Lithuanians,
Regal Russians, and ripe Roumanians.
There came the French
And there came the Finns,
And the Japanese
With their formal grins.
The Tartars came,
And the Terrible Turks -
In a word, humanity shot the works.
And the country that should have been Cathay
Decided to be
The U.S.A.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Christopher C. was the cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone.
For those who followed
When he was through,
They burned to discover something, too.
Somebody, bored with rural scenery,
Went to work and invented machinery,
While a couple of other mental giants
Got together
And thought up Science.
Platinum blondes
(They were once peroxide),
Peruvian bonds
And carbon monoxide,
Tax evaders
And Vitamin A,
Vice crusaders,
And tattletale gray -
These, with many another phobia,
We owe to that famous Twelfth of Octobia.
O misery, misery, mumble and moan!
Someone invented the telephone,
And interrupted a nation's slumbers,
Ringing wrong but similar numbers.
Someone devised the silver screen
And the intimate Hollywood magazine,
And life is a Hades
Of clicking cameras,
And foreign ladies
Behaving amorous.
Gags have erased
Amusing dialog,
As gas has replaced
The crackling firelog.
All that glitters is sold as gold,
And our daily diet grows odder and odder,
And breakfast foods are dusty and cold -
It's a wise child
That knows its fodder.
Someone invented the automobile,
And good Americans took the wheel
To view American rivers and rills
And justly famous forests and hills -
But someone equally enterprising
Had invented billboard advertising.
You linger at home
In dark despair,
And wistfully try the electric air.
You hope against hope for a quiz imperial,
And what do they give you?
A doctor serial.
Oh, Columbus was only a cornerstone,
And well enough wasn't left alone,
For the Inquisition was less tyrannical
Than the iron rules of an age mechanical,
Which, because of an error in '92,
Are clamped like corsets on me and you,
While Children of Nature we'd be today
If San Domingo
Had been Cathay.

And that, you may think, my friends, is that.
But it isn't - not by a fireman's hat.
The American people,
With grins jocose,
Always survive the fatal dose.
And though our systems are slightly wobbly,
We'll fool the doctor this time, probly.

When Frankenstein was just a kid,
he ate his greens. It’s true. He did!
He ate his spinach, salads, peas,
asparagus, and foods like these,
and with each leaf and lima bean
his skin became a bit more green.
On chives and chard he loved to chew,
and Brussels sprouts and peppers too,
until he ate that fateful bean
that turned his skin completely green.
He turned all green, and stayed that way,
and now he frightens folks away.
Poor Frankenstein, his tale is sad,
but things need not have been so bad.
It’s fair to say, if only he
had eaten much less celery,
avoided cabbage, ate no kale,
why, then, we’d have a different tale.
So, mom and dad, I’m here to say
please take these vegetables away
or my fate could be just as grim.
Yes, I could end up green like him.
So, mom and dad, before we dine,
please give a thought to Frankenstein.

 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2012. All Rights Reserved.

 “Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see, 
So far beyond the faint edge of the world? 
D’ye look to see the lady Vivian, 
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons 
That have another king more fierce than ours?
Or think ye that if ye look far enough 
And hard enough into the feathery west 
Ye’ll have a glimmer of the Grail itself? 
And if ye look for neither Grail nor lady, 
What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?”

So Dagonet, whom Arthur made a knight 
Because he loved him as he laughed at him, 
Intoned his idle presence on a day 
To Gawaine, who had thought himself alone, 
Had there been in him thought of anything
Save what was murmured now in Camelot 
Of Merlin’s hushed and all but unconfirmed 
Appearance out of Brittany. It was heard 
At first there was a ghost in Arthur’s palace, 
But soon among the scullions and anon
Among the knights a firmer credit held 
All tongues from uttering what all glances told— 
Though not for long. Gawaine, this afternoon, 
Fearing he might say more to Lancelot 
Of Merlin’s rumor-laden resurrection
Than Lancelot would have an ear to cherish, 
Had sauntered off with his imagination 
To Merlin’s Rock, where now there was no Merlin 
To meditate upon a whispering town 
Below him in the silence.—Once he said
To Gawaine: “You are young; and that being so, 
Behold the shining city of our dreams 
And of our King.”—“Long live the King,” said Gawaine.— 
“Long live the King,” said Merlin after him; 
“Better for me that I shall not be King;
Wherefore I say again, Long live the King, 
And add, God save him, also, and all kings— 
All kings and queens. I speak in general. 
Kings have I known that were but weary men 
With no stout appetite for more than peace
That was not made for them.”—“Nor were they made 
For kings,” Gawaine said, laughing.—“You are young, 
Gawaine, and you may one day hold the world 
Between your fingers, knowing not what it is 
That you are holding. Better for you and me,
I think, that we shall not be kings.” 

Gawaine, 
Remembering Merlin’s words of long ago, 
Frowned as he thought, and having frowned again, 
He smiled and threw an acorn at a lizard:
“There’s more afoot and in the air to-day 
Than what is good for Camelot. Merlin 
May or may not know all, but he said well 
To say to me that he would not be King. 
Nor more would I be King.” Far down he gazed
On Camelot, until he made of it 
A phantom town of many stillnesses, 
Not reared for men to dwell in, or for kings 
To reign in, without omens and obscure 
Familiars to bring terror to their days;
For though a knight, and one as hard at arms 
As any, save the fate-begotten few 
That all acknowledged or in envy loathed, 
He felt a foreign sort of creeping up 
And down him, as of moist things in the dark,—
When Dagonet, coming on him unawares, 
Presuming on his title of Sir Fool, 
Addressed him and crooned on till he was done: 
“What look ye for to see, Gawaine, Gawaine?” 

“Sir Dagonet, you best and wariest
Of all dishonest men, I look through Time, 
For sight of what it is that is to be. 
I look to see it, though I see it not. 
I see a town down there that holds a king, 
And over it I see a few small clouds—
Like feathers in the west, as you observe; 
And I shall see no more this afternoon 
Than what there is around us every day, 
Unless you have a skill that I have not 
To ferret the invisible for rats.”

“If you see what’s around us every day, 
You need no other showing to go mad. 
Remember that and take it home with you; 
And say tonight, ‘I had it of a fool— 
With no immediate obliquity
For this one or for that one, or for me.’” 
Gawaine, having risen, eyed the fool curiously: 
“I’ll not forget I had it of a knight, 
Whose only folly is to fool himself; 
And as for making other men to laugh,
And so forget their sins and selves a little, 
There’s no great folly there. So keep it up, 
As long as you’ve a legend or a song, 
And have whatever sport of us you like 
Till havoc is the word and we fall howling.
For I’ve a guess there may not be so loud 
A sound of laughing here in Camelot 
When Merlin goes again to his gay grave 
In Brittany. To mention lesser terrors, 
Men say his beard is gone.”

“Do men say that?” 
A twitch of an impatient weariness 
Played for a moment over the lean face 
Of Dagonet, who reasoned inwardly: 
“The friendly zeal of this inquiring knight
Will overtake his tact and leave it squealing, 
One of these days.”—Gawaine looked hard at him: 
“If I be too familiar with a fool, 
I’m on the way to be another fool,” 
He mused, and owned a rueful qualm within him:
“Yes, Dagonet,” he ventured, with a laugh, 
“Men tell me that his beard has vanished wholly, 
And that he shines now as the Lord’s anointed, 
And wears the valiance of an ageless youth 
Crowned with a glory of eternal peace.”

Dagonet, smiling strangely, shook his head: 
“I grant your valiance of a kind of youth 
To Merlin, but your crown of peace I question; 
For, though I know no more than any churl 
Who pinches any chambermaid soever
In the King’s palace, I look not to Merlin 
For peace, when out of his peculiar tomb 
He comes again to Camelot. Time swings 
A mighty scythe, and some day all your peace 
Goes down before its edge like so much clover.
No, it is not for peace that Merlin comes, 
Without a trumpet—and without a beard, 
If what you say men say of him be true— 
Nor yet for sudden war.” 

Gawaine, for a moment,
Met then the ambiguous gaze of Dagonet, 
And, making nothing of it, looked abroad 
As if at something cheerful on all sides, 
And back again to the fool’s unasking eyes: 
“Well, Dagonet, if Merlin would have peace,
Let Merlin stay away from Brittany,” 
Said he, with admiration for the man 
Whom Folly called a fool: “And we have known him; 
We knew him once when he knew everything.” 

“He knew as much as God would let him know
Until he met the lady Vivian. 
I tell you that, for the world knows all that; 
Also it knows he told the King one day 
That he was to be buried, and alive, 
In Brittany; and that the King should see
The face of him no more. Then Merlin sailed 
Away to Vivian in Broceliande, 
Where now she crowns him and herself with flowers 
And feeds him fruits and wines and many foods 
Of many savors, and sweet ortolans.
Wise books of every lore of every land 
Are there to fill his days, if he require them, 
And there are players of all instruments— 
Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols; and she sings 
To Merlin, till he trembles in her arms
And there forgets that any town alive 
Had ever such a name as Camelot. 
So Vivian holds him with her love, they say, 
And he, who has no age, has not grown old. 
I swear to nothing, but that’s what they say.
That’s being buried in Broceliande 
For too much wisdom and clairvoyancy. 
But you and all who live, Gawaine, have heard 
This tale, or many like it, more than once; 
And you must know that Love, when Love invites
Philosophy to play, plays high and wins, 
Or low and loses. And you say to me, 
‘If Merlin would have peace, let Merlin stay 
Away from Brittany.’ Gawaine, you are young, 
And Merlin’s in his grave.”

“Merlin said once 
That I was young, and it’s a joy for me 
That I am here to listen while you say it. 
Young or not young, if that be burial, 
May I be buried long before I die.
I might be worse than young; I might be old.”— 
Dagonet answered, and without a smile: 
“Somehow I fancy Merlin saying that; 
A fancy—a mere fancy.” Then he smiled: 
“And such a doom as his may be for you,
Gawaine, should your untiring divination 
Delve in the veiled eternal mysteries 
Too far to be a pleasure for the Lord. 
And when you stake your wisdom for a woman, 
Compute the woman to be worth a grave,
As Merlin did, and say no more about it. 
But Vivian, she played high. Oh, very high! 
Flutes, hautboys, drums, and viols,—and her love. 
Gawaine, farewell.” 

“Farewell, Sir Dagonet,
And may the devil take you presently.” 
He followed with a vexed and envious eye, 
And with an arid laugh, Sir Dagonet’s 
Departure, till his gaunt obscurity 
Was cloaked and lost amid the glimmering trees.
“Poor fool!” he murmured. “Or am I the fool? 
With all my fast ascendency in arms, 
That ominous clown is nearer to the King 
Than I am—yet; and God knows what he knows, 
And what his wits infer from what he sees
And feels and hears. I wonder what he knows 
Of Lancelot, or what I might know now, 
Could I have sunk myself to sound a fool 
To springe a friend.… No, I like not this day. 
There’s a cloud coming over Camelot
Larger than any that is in the sky,— 
Or Merlin would be still in Brittany, 
With Vivian and the viols. It’s all too strange.” 

And later, when descending to the city, 
Through unavailing casements he could hear
The roaring of a mighty voice within, 
Confirming fervidly his own conviction: 
“It’s all too strange, and half the world’s half crazy!”— 
He scowled: “Well, I agree with Lamorak.” 
He frowned, and passed: “And I like not this day.”

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
 the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
 Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
 and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
 the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
 to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
 seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
 Enlightenment on the planet Earth. 

 "In some future time, there will be a continent called
 America. It will have great centers of power called
 such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
 Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
 such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
 The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
 its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
 its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature." 

 "The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
 of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
 My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
 granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
 future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
 the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
 and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it." 

 And he showed himself in his true form of 


SMOKEY THE BEAR 

•A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and
 watchful. 


•Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless
 attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war; 


•His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display -- indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma; 


•Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
 civilization that claims to save but often destroys; 


•Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains -- 


•With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of
 those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind; 


•Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her; 


•Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
 totalitarianism; 


•Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes;
 master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten
 trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash. 


Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will
 Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or
 slander him, 


HE WILL PUT THEM OUT. 

Thus his great Mantra: 


Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
 Sphataya hum traka ham nam 


"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
 BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED" 

And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
 Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
 people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children: 

 And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
 or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL: 


DROWN THEIR BUTTS
 CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
 DROWN THEIR BUTTS
 CRUSH THEIR BUTTS 

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out
 with his vajra-shovel. 

•Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada. 


•Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick. 


•Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature. 


•Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts. 


•Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at. 


•AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT. 

 thus have we heard. 

 Whether what we sense of this world
is the what of this world only, or the what 
of which of several possible worlds
--which what?--something of what we sense 
may be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense.
For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance
of travelers, eating foreign foods, trying words
that twist the tongue, to feel that time and place,
not thinking that this is the real world.

Conceded, that all the clocks tell local time; 
conceded, that "here" is anywhere we bound
and fill a space; conceded, we make a world:
is something caught there, contained there,
something real, something which we can sense?
Once in a city blocked and filled, I saw
the light lie in the deep chasm of a street,
palpable and blue, as though it had drifted in 
from say, the sea, a purity of space.

 Part One


As night fell and the light glittered in the great house, the servants stood at the massive door awaiting the coming of the guests; and upon their velvet garments shown golden buttons. 

The magnificent carriages drew into the palace park and the nobles entered, dressed in gorgeous raiment and decorated with jewels. The instruments filled the air with pleasant melodies while the dignitaries danced to the soothing music. 

At midnight the finest and most palatable foods were served on a beautiful table embellished with all kinds of the rarest flowers. The feasters dined and drank abundantly, until the sequence of the wine began to play its part. At dawn the throng dispersed boisterously, after spending a long night of intoxication and gluttony which hurried their worn bodies into their deep beds with unnatural sleep. 



Part Two


At eventide, a man attired in the dress of heavy work stood before the door of his small house and knocked at the door. As it opened, he entered and greeted the occupants in a cheerful manner, and then sat between his children who were playing at the fireplace. In a short time, his wife had the meal prepared and they sat at a wooden table consuming their food. After eating they gathered around the oil lamp and talked of the day's events. When the early night had lapsed, all stood silently and surrendered themselves to the King of Slumber with a song of praise and a prayer of gratitude on their lips.

 I cannot spare water or wine,
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to the Line,
All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.

Give me agates for my meat,
Give me cantharids to eat,
From air and ocean bring me foods,
From all zones and altitudes.

From all natures, sharp and slimy,
Salt and basalt, wild and tame,
Tree, and lichen, ape, sea-lion,
Bird and reptile be my game.

Ivy for my fillet band,
Blinding dogwood in my hand,
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
And the prussic juice to lull me,
Swing me in the upas boughs,
Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.

Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,
I will use the world, and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.
O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry,
O all you virtues, methods, mights;
Means, appliances, delights;
Reputed wrongs, and braggart rights;
Smug routine, and things allowed;
Minorities, things under cloud!
Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
Vein and artery, though ye kill me;
God! I will not be an owl,
But sun me in the Capitol.

 God our shepherd.

My Shepherd is the living Lord;
Now shall my wants be well supplied;
His providence and holy word
Become my safety and my guide.

In pastures where salvation grows
He makes me feed, he makes me rest;
There living water gently flows,
And all the food's divinely blest.

My wand'ring feet his ways mistake,
But he restores my soul to peace,
And leads me, for his mercy's sake,
In the fair paths of righteousness.

Though I walk through the gloomy vale
Where death and all its terrors are,
My heart and hope shall never fail,
For God my Shepherd's with me there.

Amidst the darkness and the deeps
Thou art my comfort, thou my stay;
Thy staff supports my feeble steps,
Thy rod directs my doubtful way.

The sons of earth, and sons of hell,
Gaze at thy goodness, and repine
To see my table spread so well
With living bread and cheerful wine.

[How I rejoice when on my head
Thy Spirit condescends to rest!
'Tis a divine anointing, shed
Like oil of gladness at a feast.

Surely the mercies of the Lord
Attend his household all their days;
There will I dwell to hear his word,
To seek his face, and sing his praise.

 Towards the Noel that morte saison 
(Christ make the shepherds' homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone 
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer 
And lap o' the snows food's gueredon 
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer 
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghost I dream upon? 
(What of the magians' scented gear?)
The ghosts of dead loves everyone 
That make the stark winds reek with fear 
Lest love return with the foison sun 
And slay the memories that me cheer 
(Such as I drink to mine fashion)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Where are the joys my heart had won? 
(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near!)
Where are athe lips mine lay upon, 
Aye! where are the glances feat and clear 
That bade my heart his valor don?

I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown meer 
(Who knows whose was that paragon?)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Prince: ask me not what I have done 
Nor what God hath that can me cheer 
But ye ask first where the winds are gone 
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.