Best Reheated Poems
‘Twas the night before Christmas and I didn’t care;
I had dozens of latkes I had to prepare.
The menorah was ready, with candles to light,
Waiting there by the window, a wonderful sight.
The presents were wrapped and I lined up the dreidels;
The soup was a’bubble, with floating knaidels.
The applesauce waited to chill in the fridge
In a Chanukah bowl. (Yes, I tasted a smidge.)
The cookies were baked like my grandmother taught,
(So much better than any that anyone bought)
Shaped like candles and dreidels and six-sided stars;
There were plenty to fill cookie platters and jars.
When I suddenly sensed there was something the matter.
I raced to the kitchen – the oil was a’splatter!
For while I was fixing the festive display,
I should have been frying (not quite my forte).
The first batch of latkes was burnt to a crisp
And smoke filled the kitchen (much more than a wisp),
But tying my apron for take number two,
I ditched all the burnt ones and knew what to do.
I lowered the flame and reheated some oil,
Plopping spoonfuls of batter I wouldn’t let spoil.
Then I conjured my childhood and Chanukahs past,
When I had no idea years would fly by so fast.
And I pictured my nana and grandma, as well
As my parents, my grandfathers and Aunt Sydelle
And my brothers and sister and cousins galore
And my uncles and aunts I’ve not mentioned before.
While my latkes were frying, so crispy and gold,
I remembered how Chanukah used to unfold,
When we played with our dreidels and gathered our gelt,
In our family’s embrace and the love we all felt.
So I cooked the new latkes with patience and care,
Knowing that with my kids and my grandkids I’d share
All the pent-up emotions I’ve hidden inside
With a platter of latkes, now perfectly fried.
And to all who will celebrate Chanukah time,
I do hope there’s a lesson for you in this rhyme –
For the very-best feelings our childhoods instill,
Through traditions, our hearts and our bellies will fill.
December 7, 2022
MIRROR of MEMORIES
Disappearing into the mirror,
fading slowly from my own thoughts
memories, photo shopped to black,
voices striking chords of longing
for the once known unknown.
Fearfully I gaze on living’s death
beseeching spiteful gods – spare them
those that I love – this torment
this coming agony of absent presence,
blank stare of empty vessel.
Greedily, will I cherish every touch,
each kiss, savor the leftovers of
reheated passion, hold softly to
hands that offer aid, rage silently
against a stolen past.
Hopefully, they will know
I have not forgotten them
they will live within me
protected, as in their youth,
held tightly in my arms.
John G. Lawless
11/18/2015
submitted to – Mirror of Memories “Alzheimer’s’ – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Tammy Reams
A priest once told me that the lump
on my hand was a ganglion,
a fortress of fat besieged by health.
At last it burst and the hand swelled
like an old man's,
shovel shaped and splayed.
It was her black pan, butcher's meat,
too many eggs; backed up
on a plate like silage.
It was her slight hands shaking,
the constant poking with a bread knife,
the endless journey to the
first biscuit from the pack;
a menace that caught our hearts
and buttered them,
teeth marks, crusty.
Moreover, tomatoes,
pulpy and bloodlet,
burnt my wicked tongue,
purged a shard of shame,
dare I eat a box full
bedraggled in juices
and spitting at the angle of a chop kept?
Caked at the start in the corner
of the pan, beached in lard,
over fried, sole fit, chewed in discontent,
longing for more
between the acceptance of juices;
hope swallowed with brittle rashers,
timbered and gathered.
It was the thought, the deed,
the plan, the wait and duty of it.
Potatoes, eschonced in the pot, sullen, strewn;
a flaky hand sliced them deftly,
washed the starch off and raked them in.
It was sausages, flame ripped,
dashed, blackened and wedged
on the barbs of the fork,
heaved in with fried bread,
salty with froth.
It was puddings,
sinewed and cut crooked,
corpuscles of grizzle
congealing the blood,
jaws working the skin like the cud.
Eggs like ignoble sea creatures,
speckled and stiff,
surviving on the rise and fall of breath,
morphing into another gender
or something to wonder,
to chew on, to mention, once.
Perhaps a bean to lubricate,
to allow a channel of liberty
but still reheated to a lump,
a thankless sweetener to a morsel,
not unlike news.
Tea, besugared and welcome,
a scald to erode stubborn detritus,
a wash to emerge from.
Between mouthfuls of talk we glided,
sometimes low to the ground
near silence, seldom
scuttling to any real height.
I suppose that was left for
pipe and ***, in the latter end,
when all offence was shut up tight
and we had regard again;
the smoke curled up
and carried our souls,
and mingled, indiscernible
and flowed away.
On an as is where is basis, we fell—
down the elevator shaft of the day,
into the buzz of a fluorescent hum, the smell
of reheated takeout in cracked Styrofoam trays.
The descent began when the train doors jammed,
and I was stuck staring at my own reflection—
the stale grime of the carriage, the paper ads,
my face mirrored against the strangers, expressionless.
I finally made it home, my shoes untied,
the hallway dim, someone’s dog barking through thin walls.
The key caught in the lock, metal snagged on silence—
inside, a burnt-out bulb flickered above the sink.
Bills were piled high, half-shoved in a drawer,
an eviction notice crumpled at the edges,
yesterday's dishes stacked like monuments of failure,
and in the fridge—two eggs, a leftover apology.
Then I saw it: a post-it, bright yellow,
crookedly taped above the empty fruit bowl.
A scribbled heart, in a child’s writing, "You're the best,"
the 's' in 'best' drawn backward, rushed—
a small love, pressed into a square of paper.
That night, I folded laundry in silence,
shirt by shirt, sock by unmatched sock,
finding something steady in the rhythm—
the sound of breathing is as good as sleep
when sleep is nowhere near.
I climbed into that feeling, inch by inch,
with each minute stretched, each dollar exchanged
for time, each deep breath drawn. The city
buzzed outside, the cars skating down wet streets,
but here, it was the small clicks of our life—
turning off the TV, the snap of clean sheets,
the drip of the bathroom faucet needing fixing.
I knew it was enough—this climb, this small scaffold
we built to hold us up.
Now I stand, the city alive beneath my window,
swapping scar tissue out for the heat of the moment,
for the feat of staying—my laughter penetrating
the cracks in the walls—a song that makes each broken
piece of the ascent worth saving.
Reheated road
Reheated road retired by moving pandemonium,
Altercating, bitching, clamoring and demanding
sluggishly set forward
Birds and flies dispersed towards different directions
Their infuriate cry overspread the moving commotion
Against the riot the power standing
highly fortified, uniformed with stars
Attentively antagonized, barricading with iron bars
behind the fuming
Uproar reached closer
and disagreement sparking
Bottles, stones, whatever touching hands took wings
High torn and overfilled emotions animated
in place of confirmation, coordination, and correlation
flushing water, smoky gas and rubber bullets
find way to reach a peaceful solution
tears, vain juice and screaming
flowed without win nobody
Road reheated seeking solution treatment!
Jayaratne Weerakkody
Catatonic morning crawl
Saturday, suburban thrall
Car bomb kills 50 in Iraq
My kids live at the bloody mall
Stagnant showered stare
Crusted sandwich, TV glare
Tsunami swallows 10,000 cold
Jesus, I'm losing my hair
Middle-aged, brooding blog
Mow the lawn, walk the dog
Aids decimates African country
My broker is in a goddamn fog
Five o’clock roundtable ruse
Leftover meatloaf, reheated news
Another million homeless this year
I’m so sick when the Yankees lose
Married bedroom gloom
Wife sleeping, silent doom
Midnight landslide spares none
I remember when life was fun
... leave your walls and cliffs behind and
leap with me into the vernacular music of turquoise night,
clutching one another by our trembling hearts,
defying the twisted face of oppression
in annihilation of free-fall upward above
mansions of opulent deception,
crutches of paralyzing shame,
falling upward on the current of our breath
as maddeningly veiled, yet naked and as unveiled
as the moisture of our lips,
the naked trapeze of turquoise night incised by moon-swords,
embosoming itself in clouds, curves and rounding
of silver soft-burning from the scimitar poised on the bosom
of sky we reflect in each others eyes,
turquoise night, gem-like, and polished by the wind past us,
our heaving breasts scribing our diary,
etching in flesh what no longer is secret as
we pour into each others void,
since from void all things come,
to which all shall return on
the geodesic curve of our panting loins,
and Venus: early evening companion,
courtesan of the deep hours is holding androgynous court
among astral bodies eclipsed by yours absorbing mine,
and she, not winking through your hair as I caress it, but watching,
unashamed to lay us bare,
night-expanses gasping in compression of union,
our leap and plunge the sine wave pulsing
through the joy of yearning,
the vault of sky,
satiation still radiating from our heated and reheated curves,
and Lady Venus is leading her lovers into the beyond of turquoise night…
... the cliffs and walls are gone.
Dry Months
A Dracula drought drank soil’s blood,
in spring and clouds refused to shed
their load of collected sorrow before
the middle of October.
The landscape jaundiced and leaves on
trees petrified into rusty bits of metal
that clanked abjectly in a breeze that
tasted of dust and reheated air.
In the stale heat of the night thoughts
ran free to dream of mountain lakes,
deep fiords and cascades of sweet water
in a landscape green and wondrous.
Teasingly, heavy clouds came from
the north shed loads of liquid pearls that
rolled like tobacco spittle on parched
ground and nature held its breath.
The downpour didn’t last very long,
but long enough for the landscape to
not give up hope and become a new
Sahara only fit for scorpions.
A warm reception.
Kindling a new romance.
The burn of an old flame.
While the ancients sleep drunken dreams
in an August haze of torpor,
reheated by a relentless sun,
when the grills and water torches light up
the night with feasts of raucous laughter,
the sealed sweat from that riotous time
begins floating upward.
Fastening onto mariner's winds;
coalescing past curious birds;
savoring the sterling starlight;hardening into a glass meteor.
Indurate invader-
that is slapped down with frigid malice
by the unappeased agnostics
who reject such divinities.
Streaking through a dismal, grey cumulus
exposed in an antiseptic freezer,
it explodes.
Shattering it's liquids memories all over;
bleaching the tightened barks of trees;
stringing silver gossamer threads over tiles and pitch;
chattering antennae and chugging chimneys;
smearing windshields with Vaseline vapor.
While we look out and dread
our first tender, numb steps outside,
crunching and slipping with the fearful hangover
of a punishing Puritan winter.
His clothing is mottled,
His beard speckled grey
and he takes up his post
by the road every day.
But he knows he’s depressed; he is always depressed,
And his sadness ferments like old wine, and the best
He can do is to drink. Feelings caught in the flow
Are washed further downstream where he won't have to go.
I’m staring ahead, and
The light will turn green,
And I drum on the wheel
hoping I won’t be seen.
I believe that I felt
Much the same long go.
My thinking habitual -
Ebb and a flow,
and the flow picks up force
As time courses along,
Then reaches the ocean
Where currents are strong.
Pepperoni and cheese
Are now comfortably seated
By me. Mr. Domino’s
Will be reheated
When I arrive home.
And at home I will peer
At the art on the frig.
It’s been there for a year.
The man is still there.
I roll down the window.
He rushes the car
Like a wave rolling
In with the tide from afar,
And recedes with the pizza.
There’s nothing I’ve lost.
When you get to the ocean,
No boundaries are crossed.
My light’s up ahead.
It helps order my day.
He’s back at his post.
I’m on my way.
Leftover Willpower
David J Walker
I know
I know
What I said last night
After the last bite of
Turkey and dressing and
Cranberry sauce and
Pumpkin pie
That I
Would never eat again
At least, not this much
So much
That it stretched my belly to
New dimensions forcing me to
Unbutton the waistband of my
Khaki dress slacks
I know
I know
How good it all was
and yet how
Bad for me at the same time
And how I fell asleep in the
Recliner watching reruns of
“It’s a Wonderful Life”
And the morning after
When I cannot think of putting
Any more food in my mouth
Somewhere in the back of my head
Hatches a plan for later
Sliders
Maybe one
Reheated roll with
Turkey and dressing and
Cranberry sauce
Small Sliders
Maybe two
Just two
No more
But surely not three
Would you think it profane to
Curse the names of every Pilgrim
Who landed on Plymouth Rock?
The bane of my weakening
Leftover willpower
IT’s ALL THEIR FAULT!
I feel the world
not going well:
When the puppy from below
barks sadly
lately...
The neighbor cat
remains meowing all day long
in the kitchen...
Here at home we eat
3-day bread ... and coffee
it is always reheated ...
I feel that the world,
not going well:
When I don't capture anyone, anymore
smiling in the square ...
A rare car
moves...
Drowsiness brings down
The Neighborhood...
I feel all badly going instable,
when I observe the winery
of Antonio empty ... he
sitting with Maria dispirited
awaiting for customers in the lobby ...
Without selling anything,
without collecting a
nickel ...!
the world's a pot
and we're all the spoons
wanting a taste to eat
smellin' life's scents
stirring things up
stewin' with our meat
there's just as much
to eat here today as
there was back before,
and there's just the
same peoples here too,
well, maybe a few more
so what's in the pot
besides some stones
to stock the soup
do you have enough
a few carrots perhaps
to share with the group
the soldiers clever
back from chaotic war
devised some psychology
to open the larders
of all the citizens
cooking up a feastology
reheated stone soup
is what can taste best
a restock to restart
and share with each other,
simmering care won't boil
it just fills the hungry hearts
© Goode Guy 2011-08-15
it's all in how it's spread out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup
All day Franco-American spaghetti-suckers
do not make connoisseurs' lips pucker
Neither do grilled spiders and a side of beans
appeal to kings or to queens
When looking to make a culinary splash
never serve reheated corned-beef hash
And even if you're in a real time jam
fuggetabout cold pizza topped-off with spam
Just stick to the basics, you'll surely succeed
~ A dozen raw eggs afloat in seaweed