Vegetables were going into striped bowl at a record pace.
Tomato, celery, onion and carrot began a foot race.
Onion and radish rolled around and around the rim.
Las Vegas lemons and rutabagas slid right on in.
Broccoli wanted in on the action too.
I saw parsley slipping in with an old soft shoe.
What are we making? The veggies asked me at last.
I had no idea, it had happened so fast.
strawberry and raspberry both tried to sneak in.
You are not veggies! I said, grabbing them by their chin.
A salad? A fruit cake? A fajita or what? They asked.
I had no idea, but here came an egg, and it was masked.
The root people were gearing up for war.
They had their swords and axes out.
They were heading toward the store,
Where a rude man had been a lout.
We are taking all our kin home, they said.
You will have no more turnips or produce.
I stood back and watched the mandrakes
As they let their tempers loose.
The shopkeeper was sorry, he appealed to the potato.
I am sorry, she said, but you’ll have to settle for tomato.
The root people stay angry for days, and sometimes weeks.
So this means no rutabagas or beets or maybe leeks.
Craziest Time at the Time of Spilled Soup
I spilled a bowl of vegetable soup –
Slipped on the shiny waxed floor;
The scene I saw made my muse utter expletives –
Fainting in horror at the kitchen door.
Choruses of carrots crushed on the curtains
Prose of Potatoes pelted the windowpanes
Lyrics of limas littered the linoleum
Odes of onions overturned on the oven
Turnips of Thesaurus tumbling free
Sonnets of seasoning scorched on the stove top
Epics of eggplant - emjambment escaping
Ballads of beets beat feet to the back porch
Meters of mushrooms marching on marble
Verses of “vege’s” with visible vertigo
Prosody of pumpkin all over the place
Rhymes of rutabagas running-a-muck
Blues of black beans bashed in the butler’s pantry
Couplets of croutons covered the ceiling
Free verse of fiddleheads floats by the “frig”
Sestinas of spinach stuck to the sink.
Oh, what a sight of poetic distress –
Letters and phrases all over the space
Carefully sorted all the rhythms and rhymes
Put everything back in its proper place.
Craziest time at the time of spilled soup!
8/5/20
166 words
Choice #1
They had a hasty meal of bones
Lest the dogs should hear them
They buried their heads to explore
Dried rutabagas and stale scones.
It was their world ravaged by bulls
Cats, crows, goats and ghosts
In the skinny island they roamed
In search of prehistoric tools.
Have you heard an eldritch screech
In the sunset hour on some Goan beach?
They are bone-pickers of a squalid slum
Running like a crazy in the city bedlam.
Sponsored by: Anthony Slausen
Theme: Garbage
Now...
Metaphors dance in my mind
and there's a word I'm hoping
to find, a line familiar as
"I want you to be mine."
Relying on the fact that
poetry hasn't failed me yet
I hope you approve the way
God chose Moses's mouthpiece
and includes all thou's,
ye's, I's and me's
I want you to possess me
the way a forty-niner
would gold.
Blaze a trail through
Oregon greenery and
I'll follow you like
Rockefeller wealth
and hereditary genomes
wearing Nike shoes
till two becomes unified
I promise to pursue you.
Then...
I pictured sunflowers and
spilled rutabagas on grandma's
corner peeled linoleum.
She wore a halo and
shooed away storms
Her hello sounded like hallelujah
and hummed Blessed Assurance
as her dentures soaked
in baking soda.
Eventually...
You're reminding me of
the women of my youth
The qualities of a praying woman
has been man's best protection
The metaphor, word, and
line familiar found:
"He hasn't failed me yet,"
I can hear her saying.
I picture you praying.
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