Aspic Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

Beetle Soup

A black armored predator
plodding (as beetles do
when not chewing upon other insects)
around the lip of a bowl,
clapping together stubby wings,
razor sharp mandibles
swatting at the aromatic steam.

Beetles are tanks
they are built to withstand
all in-coming,
Birds don’t eat them,
they taste like baby goo
dipped in crispy aspic.

How small
can a natural born killer get?
The beetle tentatively,
marches around the edge of a bowl
as if hunting its own trail.

Will it find enough of itself
to make a decent beetle meal?

These and other questions of girth,
capacity and predatory prowess
must wait,
for it has fallen
into the tomato soup.

This particular beetle
cannot swim,
perhaps its mini motor was out of gas
or its tank too heavy to float?

I put the soup aside,
not that hungry anymore.

Eppur Si Muove

(Immediately after being found "guilty"
of denying that the earth was stationary
and the sun orbited around it, Galileo
said, "Eppur si muove!"  [But it moves!])

It's hard to live in Lilliput, I find. 
I have to cross my fingers, play their game. 
Their billing, filling, drilling daily grind 

sits ill with me. They all trot out the same 
tired cliches. Passing a painting, never fail 
to comment on the squareness of the frame. 

Unprofitable, weary, flat and stale. 
You can't earn prizes here. These fools prize earning. 
No sweets to eat. It's one long dreary tale 

of condemnation, disapproval, spurning. 
The Sunday supplements determine taste, 
all tearing down, forbidding, banning, burning. 

They're sealed in heavy metal, concrete-cased 
austerity. They put the "die" in "diet". 
What will survive of them is nuclear waste. 

Denounce, detract, dismiss it and deny it. 
Don't look for clover - look for cloven hooves. 
Excoriate it, flay it, vilify it. 

They'd love to let life lurch along in grooves, 
the gauche, perverse, unruly human mind 
trapped tidily in aspic. But it moves.

Premium Member Death, where is thy sting

Dead good
Dead not good
Dead so very good
Dead or alive not so good
Dead in aspic
Jellified  so fantastic


Premium Member What's On the Menu

And with her “Chicken Nipple Dip”
                                and crackers set to side
She checked her table once again
                           and smiled a smile of pride

The ‘Duck Tongue” toast and “Pig Pate’”
                    she thought were sure to please
And don’t forget, she’s made a batch
                            of tasty “Old Goat Cheese” 

The “Possum Parfait” glaze dessert
                          no sweet tooth should resist 
But don’t disturb her ‘Aspic Owl”
                    lest she would smack your wrist

The gelatin of ‘Bladder Fish”
                              salts her most lively stew
I’m not sure if it’s still alive
                              but sure it’s good for you

So when your invitations come
                              do save the date for sure
I’m certain you’ll not want to miss 
                             this night’s “Menu Du Jour”

Bemoaned

He is dead, many confirmed.
I am sad for the people who knew him,
though I never did.
to me he will always be 'what's his name.'

He died peacefully in the eye of a tornado,
he died on a bus to the City of Angels.
it was so sudden
a shock to all our systems
caught us all off-guard
minds reeling
as we contemplated the loss.

May his wig be kept embalmed in aspic.
May his chin and its infamous dimple
be cast in Plaster of Paris
a template for a million molds.
May the print of his feet
be tattooed upon 
the lower back of all middle aged
starlets
a tragic headline be embossed
on the backside of the moon.

Ring the grave church bell
walk a mournful walk as well,
respectfully talk of a life;
its celebrated grace, its unexpected fall 
one we never knew or now recall at all.

Remember the Emperor

Remember the emperor 

In Japan, especially in Tokyo, people are a strange mix of efficiency.
Young people are adolescents until they are forty living in an aspic
of western pop culture that does not exist anymore; when their parents die
they either grow up or become recluses unable to cope with the world.
The older generation did well and there are many of them like shingles
in the emperor’s driveway. 
Japan had a meltdown 12 years ago which was good for the country
people have less haste and go to karaoke cafes once a week singing
 a sentimental song about lonely cowboys.
I was in Nagasaki once, just as Nippon was rising on the financial firmament
but got too close to the sun.
I was amazed how quickly the scars of the nuclear had physically healed
but mentally, there must be a corner in their psyche
that can´t forget and will find revenge one day in the land of the rising sun.


Dead Beetle Walking

How small can a beetle get?
A minuscule black dot of a predator
Plodding (as beetles do
when not chewing up other insects)
around the lip of a bowl,
clapping together stubby mandibles 
swatting the steam.

Beetles are tanks
they are built to withstand
all in-coming, except maybe birds
and the birds don’t eat them
because they taste like baby goo
dipped in crispy aspic.

Again, how small can a natural born killer get?
The beetle tentatively, gingerly,
marches around the edge of a bowl
as if hunting its own scent trail.

Can it only hunt itself,
and will it find enough of itself
to make a decent beetle meal?

These and other questions of size,
capacity and predatory prowess
must wait
for it has fallen into the tomato soup,

and it seems this particular size beetle 
cannot swim,
perhaps its mini motor was out of gas
or its tank too heavy to float?

Premium Member He's Got Verbal Diarrhoea

Mr Bombastic 
So sycophantic 
Spins discs of plastic
He’s so sarcastic -
Thinks he’s fantastic! 

He’s on a health kick
Eat prunes in aspic....
His guts turn spastic
Diarrhoea quite drastic!

02/10/20

Simple  silly scribbles after eating prunes for breakfast  whilst listening to an 'in your face dj' on internet radio!

Forgiveness Feels Like a Rotted Grave

She left him angry and alone

Broken and in despair

His heart a shredded bleeding mess

His feelings for her were bitter

They were toxic and cold

As he felt the knife she had driven

Deep within his lone dark soul

The taste of aspic poisonous and rife

Why had she destroyed him

Why did she tear him limb from limb

And yet deep within he knew he should forgive her

But that would feel like a rotted grave

Where his carcass twisted and distorted is

Wracked with torment with a heart full of maggots

Feasting on him like a necrotising fasciitis decay. 

31/5/2018

Eppur Si Muove

(As Galileo left the session of the Inquisition
at which he had been forced to deny his own
discovery that the earth orbited the sun, and
had to "admit" that the earth was static, he
murmured, "eppur si muove" ("but it moves").


It's hard to live in Lilliput, I find. 
I have to cross my fingers, play their game. 
Their billing, filling, drilling daily grind 

sits ill with me. They all trot out the same 
tired cliches. Passing a painting, never fail 
to comment on the squareness of the frame. 

Unprofitable, weary, flat and stale. 
You can't earn prizes here. These fools prize earning. 
No sweets to eat. It's one long dreary tale 

of condemnation, disapproval, spurning. 
The Sunday supplements determine taste, 
all tearing down, forbidding, banning, burning. 

They're sealed in heavy metal, concrete-cased 
austerity. They put the "die" in "diet". 
What will survive of them is nuclear waste. 

Denounce, detract, dismiss it and deny it. 
Don't look for clover - look for cloven hooves. 
Excoriate it, flay it, vilify it. 

They'd love to let life lurch along in grooves, 
the gauche, perverse, unruly human mind 
trapped tidily in aspic. But it moves.

Premium Member Answer

nono i took a sleep
the crusades mine as I suffered not for you to take a ride
pray the pastor not mine as i will explode the wonder to be left on earth

for what

water my garden and leave me alone my babies taken from me
with kitchen rods and many tears to say hello yellow

a bunch of aspic if you ask me the like of you as i travel the phantom of errors
to feed around who surround me not to sign in

Premium Member The Ice Swan Lands

The Bride under the left wing; The groom under the right
The Ice Swan , landing on the lake in the Early Morning Night

Her feathers , intricately patterned in a Moment of LOVE Forever the thinnest chisel
Curves her neck,  to the kiss of her beak upon the LOVING Bride and Groom

The Lily pads  need a circumference scratchier to be polished ; For Love’s Landing
The cold and numbness from the freezers melts from me; with their happy Smiling 
Hearts

After the “I DO’s”  They each thank me for my thirty hours of an ice block work of art
Thank-YOU and may YOUR Life Together be Forever ( I also made this Swan in an 
Aspic Salad

                Inspired by Nette Onclaud  for Her Contest “ Anything Handmade “
                    Dedicated to the Posners for their Seventy-fifth Anniversary

  Author’s Note I was in Hospital when Contest was Finalized so this was not 
entered

St Petersburg In January

ST.   PETERSBURG   IN   JANUARY



Frozen stillness of canals:
Venice    in   aspic.

Golden-domed church......
Heaven’s    bulbs    auric.

Palaces everywhere  -
History   majestic.

Premium Member Fit For a Sun King *

A lobster aspic chaud-froid
un petit pate
Beef with gold-leaf spangles
a morel suffle
edible candle *
a chateau
Bow!

*Louis XIV
*Chocolate truffles to you & me

Spare Timeshare

I diddn't notice my mother's jewelry she wore
As funeral procession becomes vain bonfire
The mask older becoming amber aspic
As more relics are worn more frequently.
Diamonds are too much for the grocery store,
As amethyst doesn't wear well by day anymore.
Still we have the whole set of pearls
To wear at dying processionals.
I haven't a thing to wear at my funeral.
Let's put it off as long as we can
And I'll keep buying more time.
No layaway though.
I don't like the way that sounds.

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