En.Citatepedia^®.ro

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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A knife in the Heart

His victim lay helplessly
there on the table.
He picked up the blade
with the handle of sable.

With no thought of mercy
He hefted the knife
And cut out the heart
of that innocent life.

It would do for a side dish
A garnish for meat.
An artichoke heart
Is a healthy taste treat.

poem by John F. McCullagh
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Lotuses, Artichokes, Bees and Human beings

The Bumblebee noticed
Her young son in a gloomy mood
On a Summer
And she questioned;
' Why you look so sad? '
'Mom! I promised that beautiful Artichoke
One day I marry her also I have an affair with a lotus!
'Oh! We have already arranged your cousin sister
And she's very fond of you
You'll be an Outcast being adamant
And your Papa would be angry,
Lotuses and Artichokes belong to selfish human beings
And definitely they burn our peaceful Beehive! '

* Humbly to a friend who calls me a Fool!

poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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To

LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION.

Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,
Her mysteries are told;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay
Good-humor, which on Washing Day
Our ill-timed visit bore;
Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke
The morning dreams of Artichoke,
Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature's ways,
Sprites of the river, woodland fays,
Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;
Free-limbed Dianas on the green,
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,
Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told,
The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as you;
What more than Artichoke the rill
Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill
Arcadia's mountain-view?

No sweeter bowers the bee delayed,
In wild Hymettus' scented shade,
Than those you dwell among;
Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined
With roses, over banks inclined
With trembling harebells hung!

A charmed life unknown to death,
Immortal freshness Nature hath;
Her fabled fount and glen
Are now and here: Dodona's shrine
Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,--
All is that e'er hath been.

The Beauty which old Greece or Rome
Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home;
We need but eye and ear
In all our daily walks to trace
The outlines of incarnate grace,
The hymns of gods to hear!

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Purple Splendor

Shiny and purple trumpets
Tiny bright and purple
Hyacinth flowers
Make fragrant hours
Fragrant trumpets
Bright purple hyacinths
Inside an artichoke jar
On a marble table of carved cherubins
I love thee more than
My color TV.

poem by M.L. Squier
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Please stay away, our people have to survive!

A curd woman carries a pot of yogurt that drips on her moon forehead
The crystal white droplets drench the old soul, shouts, "yogurt,
Fresh yogurt, churned butter, anyone wants to buy? ",
Vegetable man pushes his cart, full of colorful vitamin vegetables,
Shouts as usual, "Vegetable, Vegetable, Green vegetables".
Fruits seller and fish monger carry their bounties in the baskets,
Pots, pans, spoons and brooms are sold on streets,
Sweat, tear, longing and desperation in discreet,
What place do the multinational whole sale retailer hit,
On the soil of poor people, where people live as dogs and cats.
Please stay away from us and we are not the good market,
as the habit of descendant will not let you see the profit.

poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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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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0011 Scrubbing Carrots

Every Friday, a happy smiling man
who says he’s a mixture of Spain, Trinidad and England
delivers a bag of organic vegetables
and a bag of organic fruit, and
it’s a bit like a child’s Christmas bran-tub adventure –
some strange vegetables I’ve never seen before
and would never have dared to buy;
or eat, if I found them growing in the garden…

but it’s worth it for the carrots alone –
they taste, well, OK, like carrots used to taste..
and each week, they come from a different grower, so
they arrive clean and smooth one week,
clotted with earth another, but
as Rilke might say, rich with carrot-ness..

and I clean them with a respect which they
and the sheer living greenness of the greens
and other vegetables naturally demand of me
so that vegetable-cleaning
which used to be a chore done with attention
only at half strength, is now something more -

and in this mood, almost overlooked small great miracles of life
just happen of themselves –
two weeks ago, I watched amazed
as my two hands of themselves
devised a new way of cleaning carrots –
the hands reversed their roles: left hand
now held the scouring pad, diagonally,
and the right hand spiralled the carrot
in the pad… and lo! those etched horizontal lines
of dirt were perfectly removed..

and the isness of the carrot
and the isness of its servant
were together one silent song
where, it seemed,
the forgotten met the remembered
and rejoiced.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Good Friday

A recipe for thought:

Take a pair of scales
as large as the boundless human mind,
and into one scale
pour all the goodness in the world that you can see
carefully
and into the other,
all the evil in the world that you can see;
into the first scale now add
all the joy that you have known
(the joy of others you can never measure)
and into the other, all the misery,
(the misery of others you can never measure) :
into the first, add all the laughter you can remember,
and into the second, all the tears;

and now, from the cupboards of your heart,
add what you will
to either scale:
the hopes and fears
of all the years.

now give one day each year
to the watching of these scales
and see if slowly, gently, as we watch
with all our love
the scales
move

poem by Michael Shepherd
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The End Of March

For John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read: Duxbury


It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach
Everything was withdrawn as far as possible,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.

The sky was darker than the water
--it was the color of mutton-fat jade.
Along the wet sand, in rubber boots, we followed
a track of big dog-prints (so big
they were more like lion-prints). Then we came on
lengths and lengths, endless, of wet white string,
looping up to the tide-line, down to the water,
over and over. Finally, they did end:
a thick white snarl, man-size, awash,
rising on every wave, a sodden ghost,
falling back, sodden, giving up the ghost...
A kite string?--But no kite.

I wanted to get as far as my proto-dream-house,
my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box
set up on pilings, shingled green,
a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener
(boiled with bicarbonate of soda?),
protected from spring tides by a palisade
of--are they railroad ties?
(Many things about this place are dubious.)
I'd like to retire there and do nothing,
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms:
look through binoculars, read boring books,
old, long, long books, and write down useless notes,
talk to myself, and, foggy days,
watch the droplets slipping, heavy with light.
At night, a grog a l'américaine.
I'd blaze it with a kitchen match
and lovely diaphanous blue flame
would waver, doubled in the window.
There must be a stove; there is a chimney,
askew, but braced with wires,
and electricity, possibly
--at least, at the back another wire
limply leashes the whole affair
to something off behind the dunes.
A light to read by--perfect! But--impossible.
And that day the wind was much too cold
even to get that far,
and of course the house was boarded up.

On the way back our faces froze on the other side.
The sun came out for just a minute.
For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand,
the drab, damp, scattered stones
were multi-colored,
and all those high enough threw out long shadows,
individual shadows, then pulled them in again.
They could have been teasing the lion sun,
except that now he was behind them
--a sun who'd walked the beach the last low tide,
making those big, majestic paw-prints,
who perhaps had batted a kite out of the sky to play with.

poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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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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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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My Aztec Warrior

My Aztec warrior,
Will you protect me?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you save me?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you love me?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you obey me?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you help me?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you be there for me?

My Aztec warrior,
Are you strong?

My Aztec warrior,
Are you brave?

My Aztec warrior,
Are you fierce?

My Aztec warrior,
Will you stay by my side,
Or will you leave me,
Like everyone else...

poem by Dragon Crenshaw
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The Pangolin

Another armored animal–scale
lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
tail row! This near artichoke with head and legs and
grit-equipped gizzard,
the night miniature artist engineer is,
yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica–
impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.
Armor seems extra. But for him,
the closing ear-ridge–
or bare ear licking even this small
eminence and similarly safe
contracting nose and eye apertures
impenetrably closable, are not;–a true ant-eater,
not cockroach-eater, who endures
exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night,
returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight,
on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside
edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the
claws
for digging. Serpentined about
the tree, he draws
away from danger unpugnaciously,
with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping
the fragile grace of the Thomas-
of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron
vine, or
rolls himself into a ball that has
power to defy all effort to unroll it; strongly intailed, neat
head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet.
Nevertheless he has sting-proof scales; and nest
of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can
thus darken.
Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast
each with a splendor
which man in all his vileness cannot
set aside; each with an excellence!
"Fearful yet to be feared," the armored
ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but
engulfs what he can, the flattered sword-
edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and
body-plates
quivering violently when it retaliates
and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill
on the hat-brim of Gargallo’s hollow iron head of a
matador, he will drop and will
then walk away
unhurt, although if unintruded on,
he cautiously works down the tree, helped
by his tail. The giant-pangolin-
tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like
an elephant’s trunk with special skin,
is not lost on this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable
artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable
whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done
so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between
dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like
form and frictionless creep of a thing
made graceful by adversities, con-
versities. To explain grace requires
a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever,
why would those who graced the spires
with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious
low stone seats–a monk and monk and monk–between the
thus
ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse
grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a
debt,
the cure for sins, a graceful use
of what are yet
approved stone mullions branching out across
the perpendiculars? A sailboat
was the first machine. Pangolins, made
for moving quietly also, are models of exactness,
on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade,
with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon,
man slaving
to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth
having,
needing to choose wisely how to use his strength;
a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs,
like the ant; spidering a length
of web from bluffs
above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked
like to pangolin; capsizing in
disheartenment. Bedizened or stark
naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-
master to this world, griffons a dark
"Like does not like like that is obnoxious"; and writes error
with four
r’s. Among animals, one has a sense of humor.
Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Uningnorant,
modest and unemotional, and all emotion,
he has everlasting vigor,
power to grow,
though there are few creatures who can make one
breathe faster and make one erecter.
Not afraid of anything is he,
and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle
at every step. Consistent with the
formula–warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few
hairs–that
is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat,
serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always
curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work
partly done,
says to the alternating blaze,
"Again the sun!
anew each day; and new and new and new,
that comes into and steadies my soul."

poem by Marianne Moore
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On To of the Game

Wondering where I been at, honest it don't even matter
Lately I feel troubled like I'm Marshal Matters
Life in the hood aint not joke, it will have you chock
Looking for the antidote to cure the bad artichoke
That's all the ghetto is just some bad veggies mix
Having you up chuck it like one just can't fix
Got to move up and move out if ya want to proceed
Live above the primal urge to fall down to your knees
Seek self improvement why do you think I'm a poet
Anyone can be what they want to, and they don't even know it
So I am going to take the time out to say I'm on top of the game
Murasaki Kitsune bursting up and making a name for my self

Wondering where I been, that good to know
Good to see that this is where I got to go
Wondering where I am, well that good to hear
Just know I'm no longer in nowhere
So you're wondering all about me and my shame
No need to just know I'm on top of the game

poem by Murasaki Kitsune
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A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.

quote by Gertrude Stein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We Are The Vegetables

Well I've got this feeling in the back of my head
I feel like making someone's face turn red
Learning bike's and ditto vices
Try to look bored and your going places
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
Some music is playing by metal gazers
It's gone through the stage where everyone makes it
Do you think that we're not good
All I really know is I think you should
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
Well I've got this feeling in the back of my head
I feel like making someone's face turn red
Learning bikes and ditto vices
Try to look bored and your going places
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the vegetables
We are the
We are the
We Are The Vegetables
Submitted by Michael Hack

song performed by by INXS
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Market

a man going to market - - -
a man going to weep - - -

vegetables are waiting - - -
vegetables are weeping for his kitchen - - -

a kitchen waiting for the vegetables - - -

somewhere a kitchen - - -
weeping for the man - - -

particles running out - - -
now - - - particles - - -running out - - -

words - - -

poem by Anupam Mukhopadhyay
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Bottle Of Red Wine

(by bonnie bramlett and eric clapton)
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
I cant get up out of bed
With this crazy feeling in my head.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
You hear what I say?
Gonna love you anyway.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
I went to an all-night get together
And everyone I knew was there.
Had the love that would last forever.
Everywhere I looked, I saw you standing there.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
Get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
I cant get up out of bed
With this crazy feeling in my head.
I said get up right now, oh oh.
I said get up right now.
Feel so bad this morning; got a terrible headache in my head.
Do me a favor, baby, do me a favor please.
Please get up; get your man a bottle of red wine.
Get up, get up; get your man a big big bottle of red wine.

song performed by by Eric Clapton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ideas For Walls

So many things in my head, Ive always had them before
No reason to be upset, theyre just ideas for walls
Now Im standing inside, outside, which is the right side
Im standing, demanding that the nightlife be called the right life
Like putting paint on my feet & walking sideways in rows
My walls could be so complete, complete with patterns of toes
Now Im standing inside, outside, which is the right side
Im standing the left side, right side, which is the right side
Now-ideas
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
A little m for the mirror, a double u for the wall
To make things perfectly clear, a great big h in the hall
Now Im standing inside, outside, which is the right side
Im standing, demanding that the nightlife be called the right life
Is everybody confused? (no) Im making no sense at all
You want a room with a view you need ideas for walls
Now Im standing inside, outside, which is the right side
Im standing inside, outside, outside, right side
Inside, outside, which is the right side
Now -- ideas
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas
Theyre just ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls
Ideas for walls

song performed by by Men Without Hats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Christmas Day At The Bunkhouse (Fun Poem 47)

It was Christmas day at the bunkhouse
everyone had sat down for a meal
when through the door walked a goat.
He stood and looked around,
then continued to eat an artichoke.
When he finished he sat and asked for a drink,
someone got up and gave him a bowel of water.
The goat looked at the offering with disgust.
Ain’t you got anything stronger that that?
Of course, we have, came the reply.
Well pour me out some the goats said,
and put some mud in my eye.
Someone had some scotch whiskey
and took the bottle out,
then gave the goat a dram.
The goat sniffed it, and then downed it
all in one swallow.
He then asked for more
saying his legs were still hollow.
Another dram was poured
and everyone was amazed to see,
an upside down goat
drinking a bottle of scotch whiskey.
The goat drank all day
and it drank all night.
The lights went out
and the old goat went to sleep.
He dreamed of himself
floating out the door
and all the way to heaven,
but when he got there,
St Peter wouldn’t let him in.
He said God will not tolerate
any drunken old goats here,
so you had better go back
and sleep it off, Billy.
Then put up a sign on the door.
No drunken old goats allowed,
signed by you know who.
You could always try
beneath the basement floor
he’ll greet you with a smile
and a shovel,
even make you hot and warm.
The moral of this story
whether you’re a goat or a man.
Don’t drink too much;
you could end up
jumping from the frying pan
and straight into the fire,
the one that they keep burning
permanently beneath the basement floor.

poem by David Harris
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