CALL TO POETS Original poetry wi

CALL TO POETS
Original poetry with strong imagery; poems of cultural flux and interactions; personal translation of favorite works from the world's verse---these can be submitted at alyguy@hotmail.com. As can commentary on poem eating. So folks, send it on in.

Mark Kulansky's Choice Cuts

Summer reading and eating, light and tasty fare, is the order of the season. From Mark Kulansky's Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History a few tasty poetic bites.

The Peasant Declares His Love

High-yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerines,
you taste better to me than eggplant stuffed with crab,
you are the tripe in my pepper-pot,
the dumpling in my peas, my tea of aromatic herbs.
You are the corned beef whose customhouse is my heart,
my mush with syrup that trickles down the throat.
You are a steaming dish, mushrooms cooked with rice,
crisp potato fries, and little fish fried brown....
My hankering for love follows you wherever you go.
Your bottom is a basket full of fruits and meat.

Emil Roumer
He was born in Haiti, schooled in France and wrote the poem around 1930.
The translation is by John Peale Bishop.

Everybody Eats When They Come to My House

Have a banana, Hannah,
Try the salami, Tommy,
Give with the gravy, Davy,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Try a tomato, Plato,
Here's cacciatore, Dorie,
Taste the baloney, Tony,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

I fix your favorite dishes,
Hopin' this good food fill ya!
Work my hands to the bone in the kitchen alone,
You better eat if it kills ya!

Pass me a pancake, Mandrake,
Have and hors-d'oeuvre-y, Irvy,
Look in the fendel, Mendel
Everybody eats weh they come to my house!

Hannah! Davy! Tommy! Dora! Mandrake!
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Pastafazoola, Talullah!
Oh, do have a bagel, Fagel,
Now don't be so bashful, Nashville,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Hey, this is a party, Marty,
Here, you get the cherry, Jerry,
Now, look, don't be so picky, Micky,
'Cause everybody eats when they come to my house!

All of my friends are welcome,
Don't make me coax you, moax you,
Eat the table, the chairs, the napkins, who cares?
You gotta eat if it chokes you!

O, do have a knish, Nishia,
Pass me the latke, Macky,
Chile con carne for Barney,
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Face! Buster! Chair! Chops! Fump!
Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Everybody eats when they come to my house!

Ode to French Fries

What sizzles
in boiling
oil
is the world's
pleasure;
French
fries
go
into the pan
like the morning swan's
snowy
feathers
and emerge
half-golden from the olive's
crackling amber.
Garlic
lends them
its earthy aroma,
its spice,
its pollen that braved the reefs.
Then
dressed
anew
in ivory suits, they fill our plates
with repeated abundance,
and the delicious simplicity of the soil.

from Odes to Common Things
translated from the Spanish by Ken Krabbenhoft

And so Summer's eater/reader, masticate these small mouthfuls, taste their crisp lightnesses, enjoy!