Best Flour Poems
Life was hard in the money department
My parents had what was called a paid job
Just over basics it was evident
Someone else ate the corn, they got the cob
Life was grand, week to week we ate biscuits
There was sidemeat on our plate with syrup
The salt made the sweet dance by castanet
That simple food had what is called one-up
Then mother lost her job, more biscuits served
Hollyhock flour purchased by twenty pounds
Its brand name stamped across the sack in red
She bleached letters off, she didn't mess around
Fabric to make shirts for me to wear to church
Embroidered by a friend 'pon collar and sleeves
I wore them like a princess, now for them search
In my heart, and for those beautiful clothes grieve
Finis'
Sponsor: Judy Konos
Contest: Whatever Happened To Flour Sacks
I saw some flour sacks at Wal-Mart in the last few years
and it was only one time..I did notice that it cost more
to get the flour sacks..I remember when I began to
learn to sew that mother gave me flour sacks to
fancy up to put in my hope chest..I did a technique
where I pulled threads out which left an open weave
on the ends to make fancy dish towels..I also embroidered
them with fancy designs to put in my hope chest..When
I was newly married my mother-in-law would get flour
in a sack with a dish towel sewn into the end seam on it..
I guess one flour company trying to outdo another company.
Mother was a genius when it came to recyclin' flowery flour sacks,
Durin' The Great Depression to provide duds for her family's backs!
With her trusty pedal Singer Sewin' Machine she turned out a horde,
Of decent apparel that we could ill afford from Montgomery-Ward!
In gym class I could usually find a locker behind which to cower,
So as not to reveal my drawers toutin' 'Gold Medal Self-Risin' Flour'!
The shirts she made sported gaudy prints of petunias and roses,
And various critters such as unicorns and monkeys in silly poses!
Sacks made fancy bloomers for sister that advertised 'Baker's Delight',
Plus tawdry dresses, blouses and skirts, but with her that was alright!
'Pillsbury's All-Purpose Flour' graced the back of shirts worn by Dad!
Others were more subdued when Mom found a sack of simple plaid!
I reckon city folks thought we country folk looked kinda weird and funny,
Paradin' around in altered flour sacks, but there wasn't very much money,
Left for fancy things after Pa bought shoes and put grub on the table!
But, with a wink and spare change, he treated us to ice cream when able!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) All Rights Reserved
Entry for Judy Konos' "Whatever Happened To Flour Sacks" Contest
My Father grew up on a farm many years ago,
they never had very much this I do know.
During the depression times were really tough,
clothes made from flour sacks worked well enough.
My Aunt had a dress, my father a shirt,
Father was just a little guy just a little squirt.
But he remembers those days and how they made it through,
they did not throw anything out they just made do.
Sometimes I wonder where did they go,
those flour sacks that helped a nation grow.
JSergi
Contest: Whatever Happened to Flour Sacks
Flour sacks I remember you so well
full of golden grain, bran or flour
a slight but delightful musty smell
perambulating the atmosphere
Sacks cut up for all sorts of things
cloth shoes and dresses even trousers
rough coats that did not keep one warm
scarecrows dressed in sacks
Vegetables stored in sacks that are stacked
in rows inside the dutch barn ragged edges
where the rodents have been chewing happily
a veritable feast they will not go hungry
Sacks of cloth rule in my book
paper is not the same no way
a soggy mess when it rains
ripping as you carry them
Hessian sacks people knew would last
paper is only good for bonfires
or as twists to start the parlor fire
airless no good to store food through winter
written 11/22/2013
contest Whatever Happened To Flour Sacks
Memories
of
Sugar Cakes & Flour Sacks
Written: by Tom Wright
9/1/99
Sitting in prayer at Mothers door
As she lay in deepest sleep.
Her face, embedded with hand prints of time,
Told of a life, upon reflection,
That made me weep.
Near her bedside death had crept
Which would not be denied.
Life hadn't prepared me for this hour,
And all to soon she'd pass,
Once again I prayed and cried.
Void of suffering her ship quietly sailed
Far beyond the rolling tide.
Now hand in hand with Jesus,
Our Mother, of Sugar Cakes & Flour Sacks
Had crossed to Jordan's other side.
The flour sack, the flour sack!
To my childhood it harkens back...
With the flour at last gone
Mom would use it to sew upon..
Dish towels, aprons , and who knows what
No complaints, our mouths remained firmly shut!
I wouldn't, shouldn't say that we were poor
But flour sack clothing we sometimes wore...
Once she needed a diaper in the worst way
Poor baby's butt was sure sore that day...
I still have a towel made from a sack
Some good old memories it brings back...
Flour
Makes a great paste
Tortes, scones, cobblers, muffins
Cinnamon and sugar crust, yum!
Cakes and pies would be nothing without it
Donut making relies on it
Throw in some sugar please
Necessary
Flour
Elsie, Lucy, Olive, this small boy's remarkable old aunts.
Oh, how they rubbed their hands.
But with glee or sorrow? Or even anger?
Elsie had a strict-looking expression -
when not rubbing her hands.
Lucy wore spectacles that pinched her nose
and, oh, had such a thin smile -
when not rubbing her hands.
Olive seemed serious, often frowning at me -
when not rubbing her hands.
But when they were rubbing their hands
they were ridding those hands of
flour that helped to make a cake or of
flour that helped to make a Yorkshire pudding or of
flour that helped to make joy -
the joy of making that cake or that Yorkshire pudding;
or of spiteful expressions they might wear when sneering
at this small boy, who would have to eat
their cakes or their Yorkshire pudding, or absorb
their sneers - sneers that were also smiles.
We remember our aunts in
the most remarkable ways.
I was a small boy.
(April 2023)
(Elsie appears in two other poems: "Aunty Elsie's Bathroom" and "Coronation for a King")
Oh, yes! I recall them well,
those pretty prints as flour sacks.
They only needed hemming
added to Mom's dishtowel stacks.
I don't remember dresses
made from them for Sis or me.
Sewed together for table cloths,
they were pretty as could be.
They brightened the old kitchen
when hung as window curtain.
My dear mother wasted none
of that I can be certain.
They are making them no more,
I suppose to save some cash.
All flour comes in paper bags
which is fit only for trash.
11/13/2013
Music is God
and songs worship
Music.
In appreciation of the
composers skills
one might look to
God for inspiration.
False Gods collaborate
throught
the concentration of plagiarism
they look to speak to many
and gather the attention of all
in worship of both
Music and song
they structure
melonic hamonies
in music intro,
lyric chourus and in
lyric prechorus
with sounds that overlap the other
that combine both treble and bass
sounds structure
sequences
with pitches that introduce and reintroduce
both verse and chorus.
lovers of bass often sooth the foreground sound
by having deep tones that neither moves
the groove or
harmony.
it often draws both sounds together
by
meeting the strings, woodwinds
and percussion in
combination
that meets to sound as one
and moves away
and becomes the regular
sound of the song.
Often said the different parts of
a song tells you when the song
began and when it will end.
e cosi cha le persone
si incontrano e si
innamorano
Gaffaz's largest bowl holds twenty cups of flour
she has six of the same size.
the recipe she needs asks for 60 cups
how many bowls of the same size
wil Gaffaz need if the recipe ask for 120 cups?
Me bum is flat coz as a graphic designer I sat
Crushed it, didn't allow for expansion, it's a fact
Guess it's not a bad thing
No need to put it in a sling
Or walk around wearing a flour sack!
The real woman cries for flower.
A handed one makes her tower.
The much uplifted that hour!
Giver has but lent her power;
Just nothing would the day sour.
A woman, then free to glower,
If you'd promised her a flower
And it she saw not next hour;
As a replacement Bakers Flour...
Such a woman could make one cower:
For more than one grieving hour
Tongue-lashing men with full power?
"Go and sit down on your bower!"
Dust gathers on the shelf,
To fill the empty spaces.
There is a time and place,
To accept final defeat.
She survived the lions den.
Dancing the dance with her sisters
To the tune of hypocrisy.
A masquerade to mislead them all.
The crime of the century, is still written on her ageless face.
She blows smoke in their eyes,
In order to restore the humanity in her weakened faith.
You can taste the sweetness in the words she speaks.
She can mask her misery better than frosting can cover a cake.
Flour, who needs it?
I do! The cupcakes yell.
And me! Agreed the pie crust.
Me! Hollered brownies.
Me! Me! Me! The chili screamed.
Why do you need flour? Questioned the tomatoes.
The other soups snickered.
We all have to have flour for thickening, silly!
This was said by Potato Soup who is always a bit snotty.
I have to have flour! Said the cupboard.
I remember the time I did not have it
And my door got kicked really hard.
I remember that day! Yelled the canister set.
“I tell you, this screaming is coming from the kitchen.”
The kitchen door opened and the humans came in.
There was silence.
Mom says this dad says that,
What is this heck heck heck,
I run this way you run that,
Mingle things in this and that,
Mix in flour, eggs and sugar,
Instead, we mixed salt,eggs and flour,
Then answer this and that after tasting cake,
The life is full of such stories,
Enjoying working this,
Spoiling things that,
It is just like a MAZE!!