Tag: Poetry About Food

Joe Mills: “Skeletons in the Waffle House”

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Skeletons in the Waffle House

 If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That's really bad...
                — Craig Fugate, Former Head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

When the trick or treating is over,
we end up here, as we usually do 
after a work shift, a dance, a date.  

It’s comforting to know exactly 
what we’re going to get, no matter 
who we are at the moment, a skeleton, 
ghost, jilted lover, single parent.  

The staff doesn’t care. They’ve seen it all 
year after year. The faces and bodies 
and costumes change; the coffee doesn’t. 

So, when we go towards the light, perhaps
we shouldn’t be surprised if we discover
it’s a Waffle House sign, the first place
to open after an emergency or disaster.

About the Author: A faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills has published several collections of poetry, most recently “Bodies in Motion: Poems About Dance.”

Image Credit: Dvortygirl “Closeup of a homemade waffle” Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0

Ace Boggess: “Religion”

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Religion

Raining hard, mist steaming off roof &
pavement, wind aswirl, thunder a series

of car wrecks in tunnels. I’m watching
disruptions of summer through a window,

thinking in an hour I’ll be out in that,
driving you thirty miles to the cupcake festival,

plying you with sweets: devil’s food,
red velvet, tiramisu, whatever attracts you.

Smiles will break like skyward flashes,
not erasing smudges on our lives right now,

but covering them with paint.
Pumpkin writes your name in icing.

There might be cinnamon coffee cake,
coconut, & the infrequent orange.

I’ll stick with vanilla, assuming weather
doesn’t cancel the party or leave us stranded.

We’ll find out soon after I collect you,
a soggy rat swimming for its life

or pleasure it senses ahead, dropped
like a crumb from the hand of a child god.

About the Author: Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble. His seventh collection, Tell Us How to Live, is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.

Image Credit: Raphaelle Peale “Sill Life with Cake” (1818) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Robert S. King “Head Waiter”

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Head Waiter

A waiter hurries up, then waits.
The customer is always right.
Carnivores love more-than-you-can-eat deals.
Their table manners grunt greedy sounds.
They might even eat me who has no taste.

The only tip they leave trickles down
from their lips. Maybe I’d like
my own pound of flesh, even sitting down
with cannibal capitalists to the richest
food for thought.

But I’ll have to wait on that.

About the Author: Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA, where he serves on the board of FutureCycle Press. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014) and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020) His personal website is www.robertsking.info.

Image Credit: James Ensor “Gentleman and Waiter” Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Jean Biegun: “Olives”

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Olives

I have a grocery list with olives
on it. Meanwhile you have

an issuance of pain aching
somewhere in your left hip

and the x-ray showed nothing but it
makes you think of Esther.

How tentatively I would step around
her and she, mean in her broadcast,

wide-shouldered through each game
we played. Yes, I recall she needed

to win every time.
I’m going to make a big salad with your

favorite marinated artichoke hearts
and fresh dill dressing. Want to come over?

We’ll walk to the pond—good exercise
for you. Remember that old photo

where she caught the biggest fish? It was
the only instance you did not smile

even though Pa told us to. He always said
we should smile whatever storm

blows at the door. I’ll mix up corn muffins
from scratch. We’ll have a healthy meal.

About the Author: Jean Biegun’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. In 2022, her chapbook HITCHHIKERS TO EDEN was published, she received a Pushcart Prize nomination and the Christine Award for Best Prose Poem of 2021(EASTERN IOWA REVIEW). Poems have been in AS IT OUGHT TO BE MAGAZINE, GYROSCOPE REVIEW, MUDDY RIVER POETRY REVIEW, AS ABOVE SO BELOW, UNBROKEN, and other places.

Image Credit: Image originally published in Pomologie française: Paris: Langlois et Leclercq, 1846. Public domain image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Jon Bennett: “Purple Cabbage”

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Purple Cabbage 

 
Glossy sapphire 
garlic powder, cider vinegar, 
apple, caraway  
a quantity of soy 
just shy of detectable 
I’m a bachelor and have 
always been one 
even as a little boy 
I had a black beard, a suitcase 
and a lonely heart 
but my mother did make 
cabbage with caraway and apple 
so I have a taste for it 
I sit at my small table 
with my potful  
of Eastern European history 
and eat my fill 
wondering what else 
I might be filled with 
had things 
turned out different.

About the Author: Jon Bennett writes and plays music in San Francisco, CA. You can find his songs on most streaming sites as well as here and here.

Image Credit: Russell Lee “Cabbages at roadside stand near Greenfield, Massachusetts” (1939) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress

John Dorsey: “Eating Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken with Larry Gawel”

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Eating Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken with Larry Gawel

this is life how it’s supposed to be
larry with a long dangling mop of silver hair
just off the highway
resting his arm
on a rainy friday afternoon
talking about alaska denver
spain & tokyo
& this garage has never felt so small
a leaky freighter
of all the things i’ll never do now
as hummingbirds wait out the weather
by my window
we run into town for stamps & chocolate ice cream
my friend brian felster’s life
began & ended on a boat in alaska in 1982
before he died at 48 surrounded by love
richard hugo laughed by a stream with buddha
on a deserted montana hiking path
in the middle of the afternoon
larry’s glasses are drenched in rain
as we come in from outside
he is a springsteen song
always born to run
& he will never die
or run out of chicken.

About the Author: John Dorsey is the former poet laureate of Belle, Missouri and the author of Pocatello Wildflower. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

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Image Credit: John Margolies “Chicken cowboy billboard, Elko, Nevada” (1991) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Diana Rosen: “Traveling on Our Stomachs”

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Traveling on Our Stomachs

Leaving the excess of old-world Utrecht, 
all gargoyles, staggeringly high churches 
with their proverbial lesson in perspective, 
arched doorways folding into arched hallways 
like bellows on a monochromatic accordion, 
I enter the gray-gray of its New Town: Massive, 
hard-edged concrete slabs of cold contemporary 
Dutch architecture dedicated to function over form, 
utility over any hint of Rococo. I’m drawn to an 
Edward Hopper-lit café, empty save the silent 
server who presents a slab of creamy yellow cheese, 
flaky golden-dusted brioche its tenderness cradling 
the bright orange yolk of the freshest egg, satiny hot 
coffee in a white-white cup, the perfect American 
travel memory on a gray-gray day in Utrecht.

About the Author: Diana Rosen is a poet, flash writer, and essayist with work in online and print journals in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, and India. Her first book of flash and poetry, “High Stakes & Expectations,” was released in spring 2022 from thetinypublisher.com Diana lives in Los Angeles where she writes website content on food and beverage. To read more of her work, please visit www.authory.com/dianarosen

Image Credit: Édouard Manet “The Brioche” (1870) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee

Nathan Graziano: “Stuck Inside the Supermarket with the Beautiful Blues Again”

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Stuck Inside the Supermarket with the Beautiful Blues Again

My wife told me to find the onion crisps
for a green bean casserole she was making
for Easter dinner at my parents’ house.
Perplexed, I confessed I had no idea where 
to start the search for the onion crisps 
and suggested we sauté a raw onion instead.
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she said and rolled
her eyes and sent me on the quixotic quest.

So I roamed the aisles, Ancient Mariner-style,
and found myself behind a beautiful couple
in their late-twenties, olive-skinned and fit,
as they whisked past the chocolate cake mix
holding hands, their shopping cart filled 
with fresh vegetables and fish and goat cheeses
but no onion crisps or cream of mushroom soup
or any hint of the makings of a casserole.

Then Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile 
with the Memphis Blues Again” started to play
in my head, entering like a silk-footed thief,
and I hummed it a decimal above the soft-rock
that fell like syrupy summer rain from the ceiling. 
The beautiful couple turned at the end of the aisle
and went on to live beautiful lives and birth 
beautiful kids, and I never found the onion crisps.

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About the Author: Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire, with his wife. A high school teacher, he’s the author of nine books of fiction and poetry. Fly Like The Seagull, his most recent work of fiction, was released by Luchador Press in 2020. Graziano also writes a column for Manchester Ink Link and was named the 2020 Columnist of Year by the New Hampshire Press Association. For more information, visit his website: www.nathangraziano.com.

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Image Credit: Thomas J. O’Halloran “Shopping in supermarket” (1957) The Library of Congress (Public Domain)

Steve BrisenDine: “Pickling”

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About the Author: Steve Brisendine is a poet, writer, occasional artist and recovering journalist who lives and works in Mission, KS. His work has appeared in As It Ought To Be, Flint Hills Review, Connecticut River Review and other publications. His first collection of Poetry, The Words We Do Not Have, was published in 2021 by Spartan Press.

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More By Steve Brisendine:

Working Out a Splinter at Three O’clock on Good Friday Afternoon

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Image Credit: John Colier Jr. “Steel-saving glass-top jars recommended by the War Production Board, Containers Division” (1943) The Library of Congress

Frank C Modica: “Language of Love”

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Language of Love

sunlight dusts the kitchen
like a whisper
the food-stained handwritten
index card rests
on a pile of week-old ads

the pasta machine
sits  ready for the white flour,
water, and Crisco
mixed and measured
with familial fingers and eyes

after the final pass
through the hand-cranked machine
many hands take turns
with the rolling pin
to shape the dough
into soft rectangles
a plume of flour
covers everyone like snow

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About the Author: Frank C Modica is a cancer survivor and retired teacher who taught children with special needs for over 34 years. When he isn’t writing he’s riding a bike or volunteering with various local agencies. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Blue Mountain Review, Lemonspouting, and Fahmidan Journal. Frank’s first chapbook is forthcoming from Alabaster Leaves publishing.

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Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “An Amishwoman rolls dough to make small fried pies inside the farmhouse at Yoder’s Amish Home, an authentic Amish farm that began accepting visitors in 1983 near Walnut Creek in central Ohio, along the “Amish Country Byway” Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Public Domain.