The Best Meal Is Never Made

[The Artful Lost]

Coriander
The recent smell of caffeine
In the empty cup, with her
Teeth marks in the styrofoam.
Thyme
Crushed with the lemon aside
The stain from her cut is
Nearly gone, yet it never dried.

It’s nearly there…
The scent of her skin.
It’s nearly there…
As she turns away from me.

P-e-p-Bless you-p-e-r
Spoon against her lips; scolding
Still sneeze on a kiss… sending her away.
Salt
Without the knife parting the layers
While the smell will sting her eyes
Only if she’d wipe the cutting board clean.

It’s nearly there
The scent of her skin
It’s nearly there
As she turns away from me.

[Jen]

Two picks that have nothing to do with poetry, really, just this poem:

Coriander to... caffeine?
Something about the transition here is confusing. Not confusing to me, but, literally, it's an odd jump. You tend to stick to the spice or ingredient in other stanzas.

Salt can be cut?
... I mean, it can be separated by a knife. It's grainy, so there shouldn't be layers to the salt. How can this sting her eyes? Salt isn't exactly the most volatile ingredient out there. I mean, if you THROW it in someone's eye, maybe. But it's on a cutting board, according to the poem.

Maybe I'm being too literal.
I liked this though. Made me feel like there's an empty space in the kitchen.

[The Artful Lost]

It's really about two people in a kitchen, but they're worlds apart. So parts of the stanza belong to one's actions and the next to the others. I just jumbled things around, maybe too much. Corriander to caffiene is an odd jump, but again, it's from one person to another. And salt... maybe I should have just put onion, but that seemed too obvious to me. Thanks for the read ChupaChupa, it's always appreciated.

[Jen]

OINK

[The Artful Lost]

Oink oink, pig pig, never do away with the pork!

[Celena_J]

I didn't read all the things into it that Jen read but maybe I rely too mich on free association while reading. THrough the scene was fragmented in the poem, I could still feel the subtle tension that must have hung between the two people. My only remark is that the ending is exactly the same as one of the former stanzas. I felt like it needed just a little more of a conclusion than that.

And what about the pig?

LOve, Sel.

[Jen]

THE PIG IS A LIE

Where did you get the idea for the spices?

[The Artful Lost]

Celena: Thank you Celena. The ending just might have been from my lack of focus to make another more concise stanza, so redoing a previous one seemd like a good idea at the time. But I agree, it does lack an ending for it's own sake.

ChupaChupa: In the kitchen, of course.



Oink for truth and justice!

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