When thoughts of you Soup ladies fill my brain
I tingle and twitch and forget my name
See what you do
You darlings you
You fillies are sweeter than a cup of aspartame
In the corner of Cyber cafe
Bloodshot eyes stare into the abyss
Web connected
And disconnected from society
He never sleeps
Lost in the glare of the screen.
All night, blue light and shadows
He lives in the game
Lives off sugar and aspartame
Overdosed on chemicals
He escapes the horror of the world outside
Through the horror in the machine
A-s-p are three high-functioning letters
And while I imagine that some might do better
Here are some ways to bring them together
At the start of a word we have aspirin and asparagus
Not to mention aspartame, aspects, and aspersions
Then there's aspire, aspirations, and asperity
And maybe even an aspirator, between you and me
Of course, if you have asp in the middle
You get asp in the end
As you'll find in clasp grasp, hasp and rasp
And it works the other way too--
Which I'm sure you can grasp
That brings to an end this discussion of asp
For more, read the Bible or Shakespeare
Or find a teacher to ask
And there it stood, tall as can be,
in fluffy layers, more than three,
a beauty to behold with cream
and rows of pudding in between.
Our gracious host gave each a slice,
a vision of pure paradise!
So moist and light, and my first bite
seemed quite okay...but then my plight!
I swallowed...heard her say with glee,
no calories in this you see,
sweet aspartame in every crumb,
the pudding, cream...but, overcome,
I ran off to the bathroom there...
my throat was burning, and I swear
what looked so great on the outside
went down like insect pesticide!
This nasty jolt made me adore
regretting cake for evermore!
Sandra M. Haight
~7th Place~
Premiere Contest: Regretting Cake
Sponsor: Julia Ward
Judged: 08/14/2016
Diet Coke, icy cold, has fame.
Spiked with cherry or lime, it’s tame,
I buy the brand Shasta
because my drink hasta
use Splenda, not bad aspartame.
Written 10/23/12 by Andrea Dietrich
(I know there is nothing healthful about
a Coke, but I just love carbonation!)
For Francine Roberts'
Pick a Beverage, any Beverage Poetry Contest
A caramel coated promise on a wisened old man's couch. Living in a sugar coated world
falling into an oblivious mass of thinness and frailty. Not yet strong--Tough, no; shy, not
either. Strength and endurance as rocky as the West coast wearing petticoats, ringing bells
of flurious yesterdays into tomorrows hopes and dreams recalled. Billowy, flowery tulips ring
true to the caramel coated promises. Never too rich or skinny. A waist an inch deep and
widely thickened cream of poppy icecream screams smear me thin and shed the self as on
onion into a glorious stick adorning a caramel coated apple. A promise to myself and not you-
- as my eyes are wide deep! Aspartame filled rats, cancer ridden corpses frozen into stark
reality. Stark nakedness tells no lies and makes bigger eyes!
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