I got out of bed,
and ate some cornbread,
when my mamma said
Stop!
But, the way that it smelled,
I felt compelled,
and my mamma yelled
Stop!
To stop, I sure tried,
but I grew fat and wide,
as my mamma cried,
Stop!
Now, the cornbread of my dreams
has busted my seams,
and my mamma screams.
Pop!
Elevator moves sideways
The pickles are dry
The butter is hard
The cornbread has too much sugar
And now it’s a cake
Collards cornbread piled
On pretty plastic plate
Red eye grits with cheese for taste
Nice slice of sweet potato cake
Black eyed peas good to me
Really did pass on the pigs feet
Entire brown biscuit with molasses
All soul food fed the masses
Dig in enjoy with tea in glasses
It’s Thursday evening, almost nine
foot-tap, fiddle, and banjo time
with juke-box tales of love’s romance
the county jail, a second chance
for bourbon belles or backroad trucks
mail-box motels, living on luck
from one horse towns to city bars
acoustic sounds that drive guitars
harmonicas with prairie dust
Americana, steel mill rust
cornbread kitchen, joy, and sorrow
songs that long for bright tomorrows
it’s Nashville on my radio
Bob Harris and his Country Show!
It all starts with the cornbread
buttermilk, of course
seared in an iron skillet
crunchy outer crust
southern tradition
slap-your-mom
good!
Crawfish, Andouille sausage,
crumbled up cornbread,
onions, celery, apples,
cranberries, pecans,
cinnamon and sage,
moistened and
baked!
How Winter Goes
David J Walker
This is how the winter goes
North wind blows
Runny nose
Nothing grows
Highs are lows
While
The old folks
Endlessly
double-bundle
fighting off the cold
swearing next winter
will be different
Spent in Miami
Spent in bundles in
The jungles of a
Florida swamp
Calling my sister
Asking her to text me
Mothers Recipe
For Sweet Cornbread
Mother would
except she’s dead
Tonight we will have
A hot bowl
Of beef stew and
Celebrate her Life
She would have been 102
This is how the winter goes
No one knows
Where time goes
Once and done
the setting sun
in early afternoon
------------------------- Cornbread
please dont add sugar
stone ground is my secret
mama sure can cook
GINSU-KNIFE EASTPORT , MAINE USA
It Made Me Think of You
David J Walker
Something
I don’t know what
Reminded me
You are not here
Perhaps it was the pot
On the stove
Like the one you used to
Soak the beans in
Overnight
Before simmering them
All-day
With a ham bone
Shedding its meat
Spreading it flavor
It makes me think of
The savor of
Warm cornbread
Made from scratch
It makes me think of a
Butter and a
Batch of biscuits
Which leads me to
The wild plum jam
Canned last summer
And the day we spent
Picking tomatoes as ripe
As August
And the next week
School started
And everyone looked
Brand new
Something,
I don’t know what
Made me think of you
The Warmth of a Winters Dinner
David J Walker
The blackened cast-iron caldron
Sat on the stove burner waiting for
The task to begin
the water and the low flame
taking its time
all day to claim
a winters meal
It would begin in the morning
with onion joined by
carrots and celery
Chopped on the butcher's block
In bite-sized portions
Adding a bag
of frozen peas
then
Salt and pepper
Eight cups of water
And cubed up pieces of
A frozen round steak, all
Bathed in a tomato paste
For a long-days simmer
The aroma of the low boiling
Flavors escaping the heave lid
Filling the house with the flush scent of
Each ingredient adding its
Own unique element of perfection for
The winters dinner to come
The smell of cornbread baking
In the oven invited everyone to
The warmth of the
Heart of the hearth
Where portions of the stew
would be dished into
the blue ceramic bowls we
knew well and used
all of our lives
The cold outside was held
At bey that night
in the warmth of
A winters dinner
Dead folks in my hood.
I just watch Netflix and keep
my shades down.
Hoping I don't get killed.
I pray to the Lord!
And in the dark night,
bullets fly past my window.
Kinda makes me frown!
(* this is not about me*)
Panagiota Fomios
August 10, 2019
8pm PST
THERE'LL BE CORNBREAD AND BISCUITS IN HEAVEN
There'll be cornbread and biscuits in Heaven.
And Mammy and Pap will be there.
The chickens will lay eggs under the house
so the young-uns can look for them there.
And Lester will bring back a deer from the hills.
And Chester will clean his old rifle.
And Sarah will sing her old hymns and tell tales,
and chase through the house for a trifle.
There'll be cornbread and gravy in Heaven
with sausages made by our hands,
and the eggs that we eat will be fresh and sweet.
Bill will milk the old cow where she stands.
But the best thing about going to Heaven
is all of our kin will be there.
And we'll live as we did in those mountains again;
and then I will comb Mammy's hair.
Janet Marie Bingham
We are a plethora of flavors,
Bubbling in a silver crockpot
Seductively salty, carrot friendly,
Our potatoes cut in squarest chunks.
We bob up, and see our reflection in an oval lid.
Huge woman plops a spoon in our swirling liquid.
She takes a slurp of us. Stirs in an extra bunch
Of cut tomatoes. Our carrots back off,
Allowing the red chunks the necessary space to sink.
Happily steaming, simmering, we are soon poured into bowls
Our peas and broth wink when we see our friend,
Cornbread, oozing with melted honey butter on a blue plate
Next to our matching blue resting bowl.
Being consumed with cornbread is preferable
To being swallowed with those salty pointed crackers.
The whole family feels appreciated and loved. Cornbread winks.
Giants will be sleeping soon. Feeling the gentle rise and fall
of their warm tummies we will laugh, and dance and sing,
Proud that we are responsible for their satisfactory sleep.
Grandma’s Cornbread
grandma grind the corn
oven warm
butter sweet cornbread
10/5/2018
Poetry Contest: Baker's Dozen
Sponsored by: Maureen McGreavy
Lately I have lost my usually healthy appetite.
My taste buds have gone on vacation, and fail to excite.
Hamburgers, chicken, and seafood leave me cold.
Maybe it’s my menu that has grown old.
I step on the scales thinking surely I have lost weight,
But it stubbornly remains the same, despite how little I ate.
Today I’m cooking something different to tempt my appetite that is dead.
I’m cooking Southern style, with black-eyed peas, ham, and cornbread.
its in my head
I toss in my bed
thinking about it
how its fixs
its
RICES BEANS AND
CORNBREAD
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