Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
quote by Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cabbage. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
quote by Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song of the Little White Girl
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter?
Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter?
Because it is just a white baby you see,
And it's the black ones you like, cabbage tree?
Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you're a strange fellow
With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow.
Wouldn't you like to have curls, dear, like me?
What! No one to make them? O poor cabbage tree!
Never mind, cabbage tree, when I am taller,
And if you grow, please, a little bit smaller,
I shall be able by that time, bay be,
To make you the loveliest curls, cabbage tree.
poem by Katherine Mansfield
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Ode To The Artichoke
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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Slug City
There once was a family of slugs
That lived in a cabbage patch town
They went out every nite to eat
Found a cabbage and began to munch down
All through the night they could reduce
A cabbage to a stalk in the ground
All night they would munch and munch
But you would never here them, not nary a sound
But Mrs H was becoming fed up
Her patch the proudest around
With malace, blood red, she schemed
She vowed to eliminate those clowns
She purchased the best poison they had
She tried every trick she read
But the slugs just kept on coming
Every nite long after it was bed
Then a local wino he said
Out of the garden he could take
These inconsiderate gluttonous
Stylommatophora pulmonates
So he began by opening a beer
Placing some into a sphere
Putting them by each cabbage head
he said, 'This will make these slugs disappear.'
But by morning the cabbage was gone
Worse yet so was the beer
And if you looked even more closely
Tiny signs saying, 'Next time make it import you here.'
poem by Midnights Voice
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Garden in my inner square
I planted a vegetable garden
in the inner square opposite a mural
and next to it there are flowers that only in the morning hour
spread their cups and spiral up against every side,
where it finds a holding place and grow hillock on hillock
over every thing with purple flowers that only last a short time.
I planted a vegetable garden
in the inner square opposite a mural,
where mountains tooth out blue in the background
and field after field of purple lavender bushes stand at the front
and there’s a shop owner sending his servants on bicycles around
and at the bottom in fruitful red sand
a vegetable garden was planted by me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Christmas butterfly
Perhaps it had arrived undercover
between the rich dark green leaves
of the organic cabbage which from
the huge holes in its tough outer leaves
had brought it up so lively – perhaps
reared in some protected warmth, mimicking
the months when ‘ small cabbage whites’
are supposed to live – July to September.
Or had it flown in or been shipped in
from some warmer clime?
Christmas Day – was that the kitchen ceiling light
about to go? No, it was a butterfly,
frantically circling round and round
the low-energy bulb, not hot enough
to make an Icarus of its daring; always
clockwise round the bulb, I thought;
palest green to grey to white; frenzied; delicate..
At night, the light switched off, it rested somewhere;
then at evening, resumed its mad dance,
ceaseless lover, love unconsummated…
paid no attention to its cabbage home
there in the vegetable rack; only the light, the light…
Butterflies do not hear; it did not heed
my cries increasing in despair –
nothing like a butterfly net to hand;
I tried to bring it lower with a gentle spray
so that I could catch it; too wild its Maenad dance,
too high, too frenzied..
Two, three days passed; so much strength,
determination, endurance, in such a tiny thing;
no longer garden’s scourge; now a holy thing,
in which I saw myself; even wished to love;
we became of equal size, in the eyes of God…
as were we not always, from Creation’s birth?
The fourth morning, I caught it in a cut-glass tumbler
against the window pane – the open window
had not tempted it – myself now talking to its unhearing,
as I did my father on his way to death…
it settled in the glass, still moist inside
with orange juice; did you know,
butterflies taste with their feet…
they so quick to land and then take off…
such discrimination in those tiny feet,
that tiny brain, those tiny,
heroic muscles, devoted to its life and love…
It flew across the cold and winter garden
at such speed, I chose to see it joy or gratitude..
and then, was quiet for a time.
*
Tiny thing,
holy thing,
as near to God
as angel's wing.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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4th Chorus Mexico City Blues
Roosevelt was worth 6, 7 million dollars
He was Tight
Frog waits
Till poor fly
Flies by
And then they got him
The pool of clear rocks
Covered with vegetable scum
Covered the rocks
Clear the pool
Covered the warm surface
Covered the lotus
Dusted the watermelon flower
Aerial the Pad
Clean queer the clear
blue water
AND THEN THEY GOT HIM
The Oil of the Olive
Bittersweet taffies
Bittersweet cabbage
Cabbage soup made right
A hunk a grass
Sauerkraut let work
in a big barrel
Stunk but Good
poem by Jack Kerouac
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So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber.
quote by Samuel Foote
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I travel the garden of music, thru inspiration. It's a large, very large garden, seen?
quote by Peter Tosh
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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0008 A Woman's World
She was artistic as a student,
sweet-natured, imaginative, not
overly ambitious; a good catch
for him, the fellow student with
the drive, the ambition, the great
family connections.
They married young; she did
what so many girl art students
have done: gave him all her
intelligent support, bore and raised
his children; and in the few brief moments
that she was granted for herself, took out
her student paintbox, and while the kettle boiled,
sat at the kitchen table, and beyond the view of washing-up
part painted that familiar view –
a jug of garden flowers on the kitchen window-sill..
and when he left her for
another strong woman who, however,
sculpted the cutting-edge new abstract thing
she brought up his children by herself
and when they left the nest, and she, now older,
had more time to give to paint,
she returned - as so many artists do –
to that motif, for them an eternal reminder
of that moment when the exalted mind
sees, beyond the kitchen sink,
a glimpse of that great heavenly view
beyond the garden flowers, where
she could walk into that paradise
that eternally awaits
the sweet-tempered heart..
and year by year, the modest
jug of flowers on the window-sill
became herself
and she
became that heavenly view
until the jug of flowers burst into glory
and she did what only ikon painters, praying, do
and gold and silver joined the rainbow paint
to point the way to an eternity
where kitchen sink’s now holy path;
that is more now than now
and she became,
the painting is,
a jug of Eden's flowers on a kitchen window-sill
and with all heaven in its sight
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Strange Restaurant
I said, 'I'll take the T-bone steak.'
A soft voice mooed, 'Oh wow.'
And I looked up and realized
The waitress was a cow.
I cried, 'Mistake--forget the the steak.
I'll take the chicken then.'
I heard a cluck--'twas just my luck
The busboy was a hen.
I said, 'Okay no, fowl today.
I'll have the seafood dish.'
Then I saw through the kitchen door
The cook--he was a fish.
I screamed, 'Is there anyone workin' here
Who's an onion or a beet?
No? Your're sure? Okay then friends,
A salad's what I'll eat.'
They looked at me. 'Oh,no,' they said,
'The owner is a cabbage head.'
poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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Remain continuously in the vegetable and flower garden.
Vegetable garden and mill, don't tell your neighbor how much they yield.
Unnecessary
Unnecessary,
Auntie said,
when you asked
about taking the mutt
for a walk;
he can take himself
for a walk,
in fact,
she continued
straining the cabbage,
the green water
pushing through
the stainless steel colander,
he runs,
he loves to run
all over the fields.
You knew he did,
you used to run with him,
and being that kind of mutt
he’d let you run beside him,
you being a small boy,
you being the one
who shared his bacon rinds,
you the one who filled
his water bowl
when Auntie forgot.
Sit down now,
Auntie said,
dinner is about
to be served,
and I hope
you have washed
your hands,
and she’d dish you
a large serving
of cabbage
with your meal
and she didn’t see
how that was so
unnecessary.
poem by Terry Collett
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The Garden
I know a garden like a child,
Clean and new-washed and reconciled.
It grows its own sweet way, yet still
Has guidance of some tender will
That clips, confines, its wilder mood
And makes it happy, being good.
Around the lordly mountains stand,
For this is an enchanted land,
As though their splendours stood to grace
This little lovely garden place,
Looking with wise and keeping eyes
Upon the garden sanctities.
Box borders edge each little bed,
Paths narrow for a child to tread
Divide the kitchen garden, dear
And sweet with musk and lavender,
And water-mints and beans in bloom.
Be sure the honeybee's at home.
How should I tell in a sweet list
Of beauties, rose and amethyst;
The little water-garden cool
On sultry days, and beautiful
The wall-garden, the shade, the sun,
Since they are lovely, every one.
Hot honey of the pines is sweet,
And when the day's at three o'clock heat
A winding walk will you invite
To a new garden out of sight.
And a green seat is set so near
The sluggish, stealing backwater.
The Spirit of the garden plays
At hide-and-seek an hundred ways
And when you've captured her, she will
Elude you, calling backward still,
A silver echo -- a sweet child,
Demure and lovesome, gay and wild.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Unemployed
It was dark when I got home
Back from another frustrating day of job hunting
My wife was in the kitchen preparing tea
I could hear soccer fans on TV.
I had tea in silence;
Presence lost to one of those frustrating days
of present and clear danger,
redundancies, unemployment, credit crunch…
what a wasted day; I thought,
I could feel my wife watching me through my minds eye
Reading all the frustration through the lines on my fore head.
Things will be fine', she said;
I know', I mumbled
Honestly, I don’t
I finished my tea,
Hustled my used frame to the kitchen to wash up
As the house rules stipulates
Looking through the kitchen window
I watched as snowflakes falls from the sky
Each makes up a piece of a puzzle
In time, the garden was carpeted in white
Amazing; I mused
Just like a good poem.
poem by Chika Nwokeoma
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Vegetable Man
In yellow shoes I get the blues
Though I walk the streets with my plastic feet
With my blue velvet trousers, make me feel pink
Theres a kind of stink about blue velvet trousers
In my paisley shirt I look a jerk
And my turquoise waistcoat is quite out of sight
But oh oh my haircut looks so bad
Vegetable man how are you?
So Ive changed my dear, and I find my knees,
And I covered them up with the latest cut,
And my pants and socks all point in a box,
They dont make long of my nylon socks,
The watch, black watch
My watch with a black face
And a big pin, a little hole,
And all the lot is what I got,
Its what I wear, its what you see,
It must be me, its what I am,
Vegetable man.
Ive been looking all over the place for a place for me,
But it aint anywhere, it just aint anywhere.
Vegetable man, vegetable man,
Hes the kind of person, you just gonna see him if you can,
Vegetable man.
song performed by by Pink Floyd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Heroic Carrot
The floods have ruined the British vegetable growers.
Tough. But
the supermarkets will just buy elsewhere,
we'll hardly notice, apart from TV's brief comment...
This week, what of our organic vegetable bag
whose carrots are usually a joyful memory
of what carrots, pulled yesterday, used to, still can, taste like?
- so this week, just one, huge carrot. The Great Survivor.
Gnarled, a giant among the pretty, washed, and fashionable ones
smiling under the golden light of supermarket shelves -
it looked as if it had fought battles, come through wars
which of course few want to be reminded of
by those old veterans with their tales of times
too testing of mortality for us to think about...
eaten later, it would have a subtler taste -
of gratitude, of praise.
A kitchen; a carrot; a man holding a knife,
on the edge of tears.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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When Ida Puts Her Armor On
When Ida puts her armor on
And draws her trusty blade
The turnips in the bin turn pale,
The apples are afraid.
The quiet kitchen city wakes
And consternation feels,
And quick the tocsin pealeth forth
In long potato peels.
When Ida puts her armor on
The pots and pans succumb,
A wooden spoon her drum-stick is,
A mixing pan her drum;
She charges on the kitchen folk
With silver, tin and steel
She beat the eggs, she whips the cream,
The victory is a meal.
When Ida puts her apron on
Her breast-plate is of blue.
(Checked gingham ruffled top and sides)
Her gauntlets gingham, too;
And thus protected from assault
Of batter, stain and flour
She wars with vegetable foes
And conquers in an hour.
When Ida puts her armor on
She is so fair to see
Her battle with the kitchen folk
Is reproduced in me;
So sweet she is, armed cap-a-pie,
So good her kitchen art
I hardly know which loves her best
My palate or my heart.
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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Wise Up
Got myself in this situation,
Im not sure about.
Climbing in where theres temptation,
Can I get back out?
I never can quite find the answer,
The one I want to hear.
The one that justifies my action
Says the coast is clear.
Something on the outside
Says to jump on in,
But something on the inside
Is telling me again,
Chorus:
Better wise up.
Better think twice.
Never leave room for compromise.
You better wise up.
Better get smart.
And use your head to guard your heart.
Its gonna get rough,
So you better wise up.
Take a look at your intentions,
When you have to choose.
Could it be that apprehension,
Might be telling you,
To back off now is better,
So take your heart and run.
But get your thoughts together,
Before they come undone.
(repeat chorus)
(you got to wise up.
You got to think twice.
You got to wise up.
You got to. you got to.)
To back off now is better,
So take your heart and run.
But get your thoughts together,
Before they come undone.
(repeat chorus)
So you better wise up.
Better think twice.
And never leave room for compromise.
Oh, you better wise up.
Better get smart.
And use your head to guard your heart.
Its gonna get rough,
So you better wise up.
(you got to wise up.
You got to think twice. (hohhhh!)
You got to wise up. (oh, yeah!)
You got to. you got to.)
So you better wise up, now....
(you got to wise up.
You got to think twice. (better wise up, yall!)
You got to wise up.
You got to. you got to. (oh, yeah!))
(you got to wise up.
You got to think twice. (better...)
You got to wise up. (oh, you better wise up, now....)
You got to. you got to. (ohhhhh, yeah!!!))
(you got to wise up. (hoo! hoo, hoo, hoo, hoooooooo-hoo!!)
You got to think twice.
You got to wise up.
You got to. you got to. (oh, got to show yo, yeah!))
(you got to wise up.
You got to think twice. (hoaa!! oowwwww!!!)
You got to wise up.
You got to. you got to.)
song performed by by Amy Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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