Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Food We Eat

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

10/16 is World Food Day. 

 “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
― Hippocrates 

Midweek Motif ~ The Food We Eat

What is your Recipe for a Healthy Life?  
What foods do you eat (or wish you were eating)??  

Go to the links above to read about World Food Day.  Or simply answer the question(s) literally or conceptually ~ with luscious details, of course ~ in a brand new poem.  I hope you find the quotes, poems and illustrations inspiring!

"Eat in company, and cook at home.  It's good for your health."

This Is Just To Say

By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Sliced fruit

Cutting greens

By Lucille Clifton

curling them around

i hold their bodies in obscene embrace

thinking of everything but kinship.

collards and kale

strain against each strange other

away from my kissmaking hand and

the iron bedpot.

the pot is black,

the cutting board is black,

my hand,

and just for a minute

the greens roll black under the knife,

and the kitchen twists dark on its spine

and I taste in my natural appetite

the bond of live things everywhere.

Kale (left) and Collard Greens (right)

I Ask My Grandmother If We Can Make Lahmajoun (excerpt)

By Gregory Djanikian

. . . .   

we sprinkle the flour on the kitchen table   

and it is snowing on Ararat   

we sprinkle the flour and the memory   

of winter is in our eyes   

we roll the dough out   

into small circles   

pale moons over   

every empty village   

Kevork is standing on a chair   

and singing   

O my Armenian girl

my spirit longs to be nearer

Nevrig is warming the oven   

and a dry desert breeze   

is skimming over the rooftops   

toward the sea   

we are spreading the lahma

on the ajoun with our fingers   

whispering into it the histories   

of those who have none 
. . . .

(Read the rest HERE.)
 

Lahmajoun,Turkish and Armenian

Eating Fried Chicken

By Linh Dinh
 

I hate to admit this, brother, but there are times

When I’m eating fried chicken

When I think about nothing else but eating fried chicken,

When I utterly forget about my family, honor and country,

The various blood debts you owe me,

My past humiliations and my future crimes—

Everything, in short, but the crispy skin on my fried chicken.

But I’m not altogether evil, there are also times

When I will refuse to lick or swallow anything

That’s not generally available to mankind.

(Which is, when you think about it, absolutely nothing at all.)

And no doubt that’s why apples can cause riots,

And meat brings humiliation,

And each gasp of air

Will fill one’s lungs with gun powder and smoke.

Fried Chicken

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Forgiveness.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Dance

   

“Never give a sword to a man who cannot dance.”— Confucius

SOURCE

“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame.”— W.B. Yeats

       Midweek Motif ~ Dance

As I was thinking about this Dance motif some lines of Leonard Cohen sang out loud in my mind:

          “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

     Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in

    Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

                              Dance me to the end of love

                              Dance me to the end of love….”

The whole universe is in a dance mode. It would be interesting to see where you find that rhythm and beat to capture it in your lines.

It might be in the flow of a river; in rolling of waves; in raindrops; in the rhythm of seasons, day and night; in the flight of a bird; in birth; in death; in a stage performance.

There are numerous forms / types of dance. It would be lovely to read about them if you choose one of them to write about; or about the life of any well-known dancer.

And why not about dance costumes, props, masks and shoes?

Give today’s motif a unique interpretation of your like:

A few poems to share with you: 

The Dance

by William Carlos Williams

In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.

SOURCE

326

by Emily Dickinson

I cannot dance upon my Toes—
No Man instructed me—
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge—
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe—
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze—
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences—like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so—

Nor any know I know the Art
I mention—easy—Here—
Nor any Placard boast me—
It's full as Opera— 

Here is another link to a poem by Langston Hughes:

Dream Variations

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Magaly's Midweek Motif will be ~ not-so-old-fashioned 'Hobbies')

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Emily's Quotes

“And the sun and the moon sometimes argue over who will tuck me in at night. If you think I am having more fun than anyone on this planet, you are absolutely correct.” ― Hafiz

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” ― Jane Goodall

“Fun is closely related to Joy -- a sort of emotional froth arising from the play of instinct.” ― C.S. Lewis

 Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Can you list 10 ways you have fun?

Fun for me is ACTIVE, like: licking the cooking spoon, playing a challenging game of Scrabble, drinking tea while visiting, reading a good book, re-reading the good book, praying while coloring, stroking the cats until they purr, writing a poem in an un-rushed time, reading poetry aloud, and taking long walks on cool days.  That's 10 things.  What's the first 10 that occur to you?  the next 10?  

The challenge:  In a new poem, find a meaningful way to have fun fore-grounding fun.

Children’s Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560)

Children’sGames

 by William Carlos Williams 

(I)

This is a schoolyard

crowded

with children

of all ages near a village

on a small stream

meandering by

where some boys

are swimming

bare-ass

or climbing a tree in leaf

everything

is motion

elder women are looking

after the small

fry

a play wedding a

christening

nearby one leans

hollering

into

an empty hogshead

(II)

Little girls

whirling their skirts about

until they stand out flat

tops pinwheels

to run in the wind with

or a toy in 3 tiers to spin

with a piece

of twine to make it go

blindman’s-buff follow the

leader stilts

high and low tipcat jacks

bowls hanging by the knees

standing on your head

run the gauntlet

a dozen on their backs

feet together kicking

through which a boy must pass

roll the hoop or a

construction

made of bricks

some mason has abandoned

(III)

The desperate toys

of children

their

imagination equilibrium

and rocks

which are to be

found

everywhere

and games to drag

the other down

blindfold

to make use of

a swinging

weight

with which

at random

to bash in the

heads about

them

Brueghel saw it all

and with his grim

humor faithfully

recorded

it.

Country Boy in Winter

BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

The wind may blow the snow about, 

For all I care, says Jack, 

And I don’t mind how cold it grows, 

For then the ice won’t crack. 

Old folks may shiver all day long, 

But I shall never freeze; 

What cares a jolly boy like me 

For winter days like these? 

Far down the long snow-covered hills 

It is such fun to coast, 

So clear the road! the fastest sled 

There is in school I boast. 

The paint is pretty well worn off, 

But then I take the lead; 

A dandy sled’s a loiterer, 

And I go in for speed. 

When I go home at supper-time, 

Ki! but my cheeks are red! 

They burn and sting like anything; 

I’m cross until I’m fed. 

You ought to see the biscuit go, 

I am so hungry then; 

And old Aunt Polly says that boys 

Eat twice as much as men. 

There’s always something I can do 

To pass the time away; 

The dark comes quick in winter-time— 

A short and stormy day 

And when I give my mind to it, 

It’s just as father says, 

I almost do a man’s work now, 

And help him many ways. 

I shall be glad when I grow up 

And get all through with school, 

I’ll show them by-and-by that I 

Was not meant for a fool. 

I’ll take the crops off this old farm, 

I’ll do the best I can. 

A jolly boy like me won’t be 

A dolt when he’s a man. 

I like to hear the old horse neigh 

Just as I come in sight, 

The oxen poke me with their horns 

To get their hay at night. 

Somehow the creatures seem like friends, 

And like to see me come. 

Some fellows talk about New York, 

But I shall stay at home.

Nostalgia 3 by Sunil Pookode  (2016)
(Used without Permission.  Forgive me.)

a song in the front yard

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows. 

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now   

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.   

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.   

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae   

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace   

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

🎲

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—                

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Cloud)