Best Potatoes Poems
I got tired of losing
So much goddamn losing
Losing friends
homes
Hobbies
Moving to new towns and cities
Familiar faces of people I never met
Those who lived for years in the same place
They had their cliques
They got each other’s jokes
They knew what was on the next page
Mr. Jones down at the corner store knew them all by name
The bus driver gave them knowing nods
Big brash Bobby who was once cute little Bobby
“I don’t want no trouble today Bobby!”
Then they’d fist pump.
I was the invisible kid, sitting next to the window, listening to the sound of laughter
I prayed “Please let this year be different.”
For a while
I was the new kid
They were friendly and curious
Like a new flavour of Ice Cream, I was okay for a treat.
But they preferred the familiar chocolate and vanilla,
or better yet meat and potatoes.
It was okay though, I’d be gone by next year.
They’d soon forget I’d ever been there.
I was the loser
who couldn’t go over to Jimmy’s house to play
Ya that weirdo loser
who couldn’t play baseball after school
The loser who had to go straight home
After a while I wanted to move
I wanted another fresh start
I was tired of losing
So much goddamn losing
Maybe the next town
or the next city would be different
Maybe if I tried really hard I could be chocolate or vanilla
Or even better, I could be meat and potatoes.
Metaphorically they are
As rust to iron
In the fields of
The hunger demon
Ravaging timelessly
Small potatoes
Are like
The Grace of God.
So versatile is the potato.
It’s orange; it’s yellow; it’s white; it’s sweet.
It’s baked or boiled; it’s mashed or fried.
It’s served with poultry, with fish or with meat.
I love to cook, and I have for you
three recipes for potato dishes.
Not too expensive, they’re easy and fast.
But best of all, they are most delicious!
A Tator Tot casserole I love to bake.
With my company, it’s always a hit.
Ground beef fried with onion is mixed with creamed soup
and the bag of tots! Bake with cheese over it!
From my childhood comes the twice baked potato.
I’m sure you’ve heard of it – bacon and cheese.
But try some canned tuna with canned green beans.
Top with good cheese; microwave; it’s a breeze.
Last is a recipe that I obtained
from the time that I spent in Madrid.
The Spanish omelet’s really big there.
This is a recipe that I “redid.”
I fry chopped potatoes and onions in oil.
Salt and pepper it; drain off the oil when gold.
Stir in lots of eggs till it’s moist and thick.
In omelet shapes this mixture should hold.
Onto a large griddle, pour each omelet shape.
Turn them like pancakes when each side is done
I’ve Americanized it by adding Tabasco,
melting cheese on it too; this food is so fun!
These are just three dishes made with potatoes.
I have many more. Do you think you could make
at least one of these I’ve described? Let me know!
And I hope you already know how to bake!
July 28, 2019
For Chantelle Anne Cooke's Cornucopia Cooking Poetry Contest
“These mashed potatoes are bleeding,” the six-year old said.
I looked at them, curiously.
A white mound with a bit of yellow.
No gravy or ketchup.
A curious observation, I thiought,
pondering it.
“Just go with it, Grandma,” her nine-year-old sister told me.
So I did.
Meat and potatoes and chicken will not do
Has to be beef and genuine Iowa-grown corn-fed too
Mashed potatoes not those flimsy flakes from a box
Gravy stirred by loving hands valuable as Fort Knox
Dessert can be cake if you cannot get Mom’s pie
If you can there’s nothing better under this old sky
Scalloped corn and twice baked loaded potatoes
With thick bubbly cheese sauce that freely flows
You are on a diet? This is really no problem at all.
There is a always a leftover pile of carrots left in the hall
Sometimes a new relative brings a piece of lettuce too
I will eat the good stuff leaving rabbit food for you
as much as she whipped
never could get the lumps out
meal time at Grandma's
Courting days are long over now
men, well, what does define a man?
Certainly, it is not merely physical?
yet one would expect manliness to
involve some sort of strength?
Does a man let a woman cry?
Does a man make a woman cry?
Honey DO this! Honey move-do that!
The theater is mostly empty now,
no sedans emptying bushel loads of kids,
no popcorn flying through Saturday afternoon’s air.
The kids are reigned in plopped in front of laptops,
too elastically rubber-kneed to walk more than
from the bed to the chair.
I mean the lounge chair, where
they slouch in perpetuity.
A decade or two of days to reframe
two generations of total couch potatoes.
They sit glued to their IPhone, IPods, Kindle’s
not writing, not composing but gaming.
It’s enough to make a mother cry, daily.
Fathers rush down packed highways,
single sardines in smaller and smaller cans,
toward their own desktop comps.
Carpal tunnel runs rampant over the populous.
Emptying box, after box of environmentally correct
reused paper tissues and green nappies into landfills,
online they bet on the daily double.
He's the cat's meow,
just turned five,
has a stubborn streak
half a mile wide.
At Kim's diner,
he held one of his fries
in front of his face.
"Do they put potatoes
in these?" he asked.
"I think McDonald's does that."
There were potatoes planted deep
In the early cold sping
So soon that a frost still could come
And nip the tender green
Unharmed by a sudden frost's bite
They grow to unusual height
Then the blossoms faded fast
Signaling harvest rites
Potatoes
At dinner the other night,
mom fixed our favorite.
She baked them,
broiled them,
cut them up,
and fried them nice.
She told us,
this was the story of life,
all through dinner.
as we sat and ate,
and laughed and cried.
At the end,
we found we were;
comforted,
sad,
happy,
and made;
to feel like everything had…
importance.
It was not what was on the plate,
or even what was missing.
but that she made what she had,
with all she had,
and gave it willingly…
to those she loved.
meat and potatoes
perfect dinner for a man
with an ice cold beer
Potatoes
I was on old steamer once it was loaded with
Idaho potatoes and bound for Peru it was not much fun
with the potatoes came rats and insects
but we got rid of them, the rats when unloading a Lima
Port, but there was a plague of crabs
that came onboard in Lima, but that was not the blame
of the potatoes.
I had thought the root vegetable potato was discovered
In Peru and brought Europe, I don`t if this was a blessing
seeing so many fat children
filling their faces with Pommes Frites.
When eating out, I make it quite clear I don`t want
any potatoes having seen a thousand rat dancing on top of them
but they still bring me potatoes; I used to give them to my dog
she got fat and had a heart attack
I had one too, but that was caused by smoking.
During the war when the Nazis occupied my country potatoes
boiled with the skin on was the norm, my mother said the vitamins are
under the skin, it could also be she hated peeling
I remember she was throwing up in the sink she blamed the spuds
But she was pregnant, and I didn`t know before
I had a younger brother who was fed mashed potatoes
In all honesty.
I think what I truly desired was to be put on a plate.
And be devoured piece by piece.
My attention, all my free time.
Everything that no one else could see.
With knife and fork.
T be taken apart and devoured tastefully.
With nothing left except the juice of where I laid.
The tough parts that take time to cut,
Revealed in an instant.
To be desired in mutual attraction, a certain craving.
Covered in salt, pepper, a slice of butter.
All of my interests, my habits.
The anticipation of being sizzled and flipped on a cast iron skillet.
Served fresh on a plate.
A baked potato on the side to bring out the taste.
In all honesty.
I think I'll have a steak
During October and November,
after the bitter four mile cycle
from the school,
I'd eat my dinner,
then face the job of picking potatoes
from the long ridges
my father had dug with a spade,
in one of the fields during the day.
The bigger spuds were put in clamps
in the field, neatly covered with clay
for the winter,
to keep away birds and mice.
Sometimes, my sisters had picked them,
leaving the poicins for me
to be boiled later for pigs and hens
in the great pot on the open fire.
If you're seeking a really great treat,
potatoes are the things you must eat.
Please keep them in mind,
if you're so inclined,
'cause they're better for you than red meat.