Lunch Is Ready
you must have read before
that when a man is made to choose
between lunch
and poetry
he must choose lunch
it is 12: 20 noon
and if you wish
please finish this poem for me
make it say something
about hunger
the pinch in the stomach
the lack of guts
the impatience about life
for the meantime
i'll take what is offered on the table
i still have to chew
another idea that is fed in my mind
another poem
shaped like a fried chicken
scents of lumpia shanghai
images of white rice
exuding some fumes in
the light to the ceiling
clinking sounds of silver spoon and fork
and flowing clear drinking water
in the glass
in a whoosh
and the usual conversations
of sweet nothings
displayed on the table
like a soup
of bird's nest
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
438
To Choose Between A
Hot Breakfast Ready On The Table
And Finishing Another Poem
I Choose The Breakfast
Together With My Wife
This Poem Can Be Suspended
In Time
And Become Another Unfinished
Act Of Creation
By A Man Wanting To Fill This
World With Poems
After A While
When I Have My Fill And When
I Make Some Nice Conversations With My Wife
And My Dog Beside The Table
Looking At Me
For A Piece Of Fried Pork
When The Sipping Of Coffee Is Over
When I Finally Wipe My
Chin With The Sky Blue Napkin
When I Consider
Eating As Finally Over
As Promised
I Will Come Back Again
And Finish This Poem
And There Is Something
Nice In This
Act Of Creation
You Feel It
It Is Warm Like The Hand Of
A Beautiful Woman
It Is As Hot As Ever
Like This Wanton Desire
Lovely,
As Lovely As You Love Each Letter
Of The Word
Of Your Poetry
I Am Feeling It In The Bone
Of My Soul
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Breakfast Is Ready
(7: 45 in the morning)
to choose between a
hot breakfast ready on the table
and finishing another poem
i choose the breakfast
together with my wife
this poem can be suspended
in time
and become another unfinished
act of creation
by a man wanting to fill this
world with poems
after a while
when i have my fill and when
i make some nice conversations with my wife
and my dog beside the table
looking at me
for a piece of fried pork
when the sipping of coffee is over
when i finally wipe my
chin with the sky blue napkin
when i consider
eating as finally over
as promised
i will come back again
and finish this poem
and there is something
nice in this
act of creation
you feel it
it is warm like the hand of
a beautiful woman
it is as hot as ever
like this wanton desire
lovely,
as lovely as you love each letter
of the word
of your poetry
i am feeling it in the bone
of my soul
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Things Do Not Seem To Be Them After A Careful Seeing
a spoon
and a fork and they seem to appear
with food on a silver platter
when we talk we talk like poets now
after years
a spoon is no longer just a spoon
and neither is the fork
and neither is the food the food that we
eat on the table
and neither is the silver platter a mere
silver platter as it seems to be
for a spoon may be me and i may also be
a tongue and i could be a tongue to your
fork, a protrusion that stabs me like a knife
and the silver platter could be our mind
a garden where we put every seed
and the table and the cloth that covers it
with leaves and flowers
myabe our worlds, covered and uncovered
with some intricate designs
this could be our world now. a world of poems
where everything is a roll of sensitive skin
a mind so fertile with its array of metaphors
and similes and
exaggerations, and these make us so happy
we tiptoe, we choose the word, we equate
every object to a meaning, we dance to a lot
of its nuances, and then we touch and then
we are so silent. we choose not to hurt.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Human Seeds
She didn't have the best mind in the class
she knew that;
nor the prettiest face.
She couldn't play the clown-make people laugh
and she was not the one to understate
thoughts and feelings
on specific things.
She moved among her contemporaries
unseen, untouched
not noticed
nor scorned
but not given either
much respect.
She didn't dance-
too much exposure there-
and her body often betrayed
her lack of balance
and too
she didn't much think
of body parts as
internal expressions.
At least not her's.
So she circled her Being
around one friend and her books;
the one friend who shared her predicament.
And the two would associate, rather than talk,
hung together on lunch-time walks
each having someone who
could navigate that long mile
from lunch room table
to lunch room door.
Two shadows close enough
each concealing the other,
therefore, together they were shadowless.
Til one day she read in one of her books
that Shadow Beings have an
opportunity
to make of themselves new things,
because they are not filled up yet with superficials.
Empty vessels tho they might be
they too
can choose what ingredients
will make up their life-soup
instead of already in their teens
having been already filled with gruel mean.
So taken that way
she thought
I am a Human Seed
awaiting still
My Blossoming.
And that was her
first
Awakening.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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A Poem Is Just A Poem
a poem is just a poem and if it is just a poem
it must be just a poem just like another poem
a poem is nothing but just a poem otherwise
it cannot be my poem; it may speak about
anything, or something, or about everything,
but my poem is just a poem just like anybody's
poem, which is just but a poem, like any other
poem, for a poem to be a poem it must just be
a poem: it has nothing to do with my love, and death
my life, or bliss, but as i have told you, once, twice
thrice, eat some rice, and be that wise, a poem is
just a poem, just like your poem. Why do you insist
on asking, what is happening to me? I am not a
poem, for i am but just the composer of the poem,
need i tell you again, that a poem is just a poem?
just like any other poem, which is just a poem
it is just a voice in my head that i have heard
someone comes and speaks and i listen so
this poem is not actually my poem but the poem
of someone else's: theirs not mine, from a mind.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sexual Soup
A man so sick that the sexual soup
cannot save him -
the chicken soup of sex
which cures everything:
tossed mane of noodles,
bits of pale white meat.
the globules of yellow fat
like love...
But he is a man so sick
no soup can save him.
His throat has healed into a scar.
Rage fills his guts.
He wants to diet on dust.
I offered to feed him
(spoon by spoon)
myself.
I offered my belly as a bowl.
I offered my hands as spoons,
my knees as tongs,
my breasts as the chafing dish
to keep us warm
I offered my navel
as a brandy snifter.
"My tongue is gone," he said,
"I have no teeth.
My mouth is with my mother in the grave.
I've offered up my hunger to the air,
my nostrils to the wind,
my sex to death,
my eyes to nothingness & dust."
"What do you lust for then?"
I asked.
"I lust for nothing."
poem by Erica Jong
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A Little Sunshine
a grain of rice
on a table cloth
beside
a cup of hot
coffee
imperceptible
but when a connection is found
soon
the spoon and fork
shall understand
some pieces
no matter what
do not fit
on a reasonable landscape
what is the grain of rice
doing on a breakfast table?
your mind is furious
i think it is cool
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Old Dreams Are Simple
rubber slippers on my feet
for christmas
fried chicken wing on the table
a cup of white rice
a glass of water
gazing at the stars and the moon
cool winds and shadows of tree
silvery river
a wooden boat and a paddle
with you
beside me
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Breakfast Is Ready (2)
breakfast is ready
we sit on our designated seats
we pray
we put our hands on the table
we take the spoon and fork
and knife
slice the cheese, break the bread
sip the coffee, chew,
no spitting, swallow
no choking
in here there is an implied admission
of hunger, thirst, and
emptiness.
we say the words thanks after,
amen to the next thirst and hunger.
conversations there are cliches.
but i admit, i dont give a damn now, nothing really matters.
i always say a little prayer for you.
Before i leave.I do not have to tell you.
honest.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Evening Hunger
When hunger came
I went to kitchen
Cooked rice
Made a soup of chicken
Hunger lessened
Had a glass of wine
Felt not comfortable
To have the food alone
Took the mobile phone
Called to him
Who lives same as I
Welcoming sudden invitation
He is to come
Prepared the table for two
Second glass of wine
Toasted with the friend
We had a happy time
Talking about problems
Transcendent solution
To the boarding evening
Tomorrow
How it will be
Hunger is not the curry for meal all the time
Wine is not the friend for loneliness all the time
poem by Udaya R. Tennakoon
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What Do I Really Need?
upon a dining table
i too, ask myself,
what do i really need?
one fried dried fish
a cup of steamed brown rice
a pinch of salt
five drops of coconut vinegar
a glass of water
and then the much needed
rest for the night
& with you
my bare hands
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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This Poem
THIS POEM
This poem
This first poem
This last poem
This poem that invented Poetry
This one and only one poem
This fictional poem
This ideal poem
This perfect poem
This would – be holy poem
This unreal poem
This poem which is not a poem
This poem which is the essence of all poetry
This poem
And that poem
And my poem
And your poem
And all poems
Poem poem poem poem poem
This poem
Mine and yours
This one small poem of so so many
And not such a good poem at all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Bread And Butter
bread and butter
day to day
on the table
i must add
this dessert
called poetry
then some
fumes of
pearl rice
and scents
of hycinths
rise up
to the skies
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Poetry Is Somebody Writing
Poetry is somebody writing
About soft rotting peaches,
Lying on a table that's missing a leg
In a deserted cottage somewhere,
With ermine curtains.
And Poetry is someone explaining
That the poem holds promise of great beauty,
In the seeds of the peaches,
Even if they are over-ripe;
And even if the curtains are poorly matched.
And Poetry is someone else arguing
That the poem is about avarice
And wasted opportunity
In a post-modern world.
And Poetry is somebody else saying
A poem is just a still life
Made out of nothing in particular,
And thus can't be assigned relative values.
And Poetry is the child,
Falling asleep on the table
Holding a poem book open,
Pressed against his cheek,
And dreaming of ermine peaches
Rolling off of limping tables,
In a dark cottage alone,
In the middle of an existence
Nowhere that we could recognize.
poem by Patti Masterman
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The Thing In Itself
a white chicken
egg
on top of porcelain
saucer
beside
a silver spoon
the mahogany table is
one legged
with a big
round base keeping it
balanced
amidst this elliptical space
up the ceiling
is a round 220 bulb
lending light
to the room
the white egg stands
like a zero
above a underline
we let our gaze
stroll at the bridge
of our nose
we listen
how these things in themselves
relate to us
without words.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Scribbler's Stymie
Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write
Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write
Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write
It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write
My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write
It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write
In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write
I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write
Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write
Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write
It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write
poem by Julia Grace
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There Was A Poem About Poetry
THERE WAS A POEM ABOUT POETRY
There was a poem about poetry
Written by a poet whose name was hidden within the lines-
The poem about poetry
Became a song in the night
And a distant metaphor
For the incomprehensible journey that is life-
It became anything it could be made to be-
Love,
A world of a kind,
A mystery,
The holy sounds of light far far away -
All the poems we know are like this,
In the darkness they say one thing
But in the light in the light
Oh how dark and deep and far and lonely they are-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Word Is Just A Word
a word is just a word
and it may come from somewhere else
from a very far place
because a word like a bird has wings
and it has feet and it may hover
on my hair and make a nest there
like this poem
and that poem of pain and that poem of joy
and that poem that you have read and
made me the man crying in pain inside those lines
for a poem is just a poem
and it may come from somewhere else
from a very far, far place
about someone else
because a poem is like a bird with wings
with feet and with feathers and it may hover
inside my heart
and make a house there
and i am there too
emphatizing.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Becoming a Poet
The first poem made me sigh
The second poem was worth a try
The third poem made me a poet
It was somehow good and I know it
The fourth poem made me renowned
Because of its excellence, I was crowned
The fifth poem was one of its kind
It left the others all behind
Then, poetry became like water
My whole life it did alter
poem by Jawad Al Harake
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The Poem Of All The Places I Have Never Been
THE POEM OF ALL THE PLACES I HAVE NEVER BEEN
The poem of all the places I have never been
The poem of all the dreams I have not seen
The poem of others poems written in lines I have never imagined
The poem of the infinite – what-is- not and ‘what- will- never- be
The poem of seas and suns and sounds and Shakespeare’s sonnets,
The poem of words and only words whose sounds do not mean what we feel
The poem of all I would not and cannot write
The poem that is not and never will be in me
The poem I do not write
The poem I am not
The poem lost
The poem which itself is not a poem
The poem of the last contradiction and the first
The poem beyond the poem hidden within the poem
The poem which will never be a poem
The poem which is not
The poem I cannot dream.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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