Tomato Talk (and a Poem)

Photo by: benmcleod, Flickr Creative Commons

As a child, I felt cheated by tomatoes. They didn't taste as good as they looked. And they were a fruit -- a fraudulent fruit that tasted like a vegetable. When my mother made tacos, she always tried to sneak in a small piece of tomato beneath my lettuce and cheese; I dug it out and discarded it.

My best friend loved tomatoes so much, she bit into them like they were apples, then sprinkled on some salt and took another bite, and another and then more, until juice dripped off her elbow and another tomato was gone. I envied her and also viewed her as an oddity. Now, I like tomatoes, though not enough to bite into a fat one. My husband grows them (with better results each year), and I sometimes eat the small ones off the vine.

So the poem below is from (and for) the childhood me. The poetic form is called a Zeno, which I'd never heard of until I read this week's poetry stretch on The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Lament on the Tomato

Vegetable disguised as fruit,
growing red in
summer's
heat,
ripening and
looking
sweet:
It turns out you
are a
cheat.


© 2013 Stephanie Parsley

A Double Dactyl Poem About a Man Before His Time

Delft, 1675
(Or: Why Many of Leeuwenhoek's Letters Remain Unpublished)

Higgledy-piggledy,
Anton van Leeuwenhoek,
uneducated in
science and such,

made tiny microscopes,
spied spirogyra, sired
microbiology—
published in Dutch.

(c) 2012 Stephanie Parsley

Ever since I read an old-ish poem about Antony van Leeuwenhoek inventing the microscope, he's fascinated me. It turns out he didn't invent the microscope, but in the mid-1600s he created his own teeny-tiny single-lens microscopes, with which he was the first to see blood cells, sperm cells, protozoa and many more fascinating things. Also, the guy was a fabric merchant, not a scientist. He had never attended university. And he spoke only Dutch. But that didn't hold him back. It would be about 150 years before technology advanced enough for the same things to be viewed with a compound microscope.

Opposites Poem

Photo by: Mikecogh, Flickr Creative Commons

This past Monday's poetry stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect was all about opposites. I resisted the challenge of writing an opposite poem because I could not think of a perfect pair of words to write about. But this morning, I eschewed perfectionism, got out pen and paper and gave opposites a little try. Glad I did!


On Trying to Write a Poem About Opposites:

Nuance
eludes me,
try as I might
to fashion a poem
that’s not at all trite.
My effort with opposites,
try as I may,
repeatedly
ends in
cliché,
cliché.

(c) 2012 Stephanie Parsley

Poem in progress: Home

Photo by cdsessums, Flickr Creative Commons

This week's Monday poetry stretch is to write a poem about home. After the past few years' missings, leavings and moves, I found these words (and a cat) waiting when I sat down to write.

And as I've been memorizing poetry, the latest being Naomi Shihab Nye's "Kindness," this poem contains several nods to "Kindness." Meaning, I stole much of the first line and took inspiration from Nye liberally.

Here's a third draft of what's still a work in progress.

Home

Before you know what home really is
you must leave, feel its cool shade thinning
as you drive away. You must spend Sundays
on another couch, catless, no gentle quilt nearby,
no dim room with a narrow bed that knows
your form. Before you learn the density of home,
you must sit alone with your pizza, remembering
neighbors' front yard games, boys who shrugged
off boundaries, driveway and hedge, tall windows
framing them like curled photos in an album
handed down. You must smell the garlic air,
how it lingered days after the soup was gone
from the chipped white stove, know again
the damp porch step where you heard the moon
whisper, This world is larger than your questions.
You must hum the creak of the faded red door
as you enter another place, empty,
crave the embrace, call Hello?
again, feel it calling you
home.

(c) 2012 Stephanie Parsley
(with nods to Naomi Shihab Nye)

On the way to work, I saw a boy swinging

Photo: clvrmnky, Flickr Creative Commons

 

Swinging

I like to swing.
     Pump---stretch.
I don't need help. 
     Kick---reach.
I sit in the seat.
     Lean back---fly.
I swing by myself.
     Treetop---sky.
I can swing by myself.
     Woosh---glide.
I swing 'til I'm through.
     Slow---slide.
But how do I stop?
     Brake---crouch.
I wish I knew.
     Jump---
                 OUCH. 


(c) 2012 Stephanie Parsley

Missed Connections

The poetry challenge this Monday was to write a "personal ad" poem. I immediately started thinking of the "missed connections" section of the classified ads of many local weekly papers. The ads go something like this:

I was working the counter at Cimarron Coffee. You ordered the cafe au lait, and I forgot the steamed milk. I said I was sorry, but I meant to say you distracted me with your loveliness and would you want to have a beer together soon. Please come back in.

I've been memorizing poetry lately during my spare time at work. A certain poem was on my mind when I wrote my personal ad poem:

Photo by Andrew Beebe, Flickr Creative Commons

Missed Connections: You, on the Horse

Last solstice,

During the great snow,

You stopped by my woods.

I heard your horse's bells,

Caught their silver glint beneath

The moon, discerned your snow-lit

Cheek. I saw you there, I did.

These woods are lonely.

Come back soon.

Come back soon.

(c) Stephanie Parsley 

(Thanks once again to The Miss Rumphius Effect for the challenge.)

P.S. In researching Missed Connections ads, I came across a beautifully illustrated book of missed connections. The author, Sophie Blackall, also has a blog full of her work.

From the pink Post-its:

Pen me, peel me,

p o s t     m e 

prominently   for

perfection in

e p h e m e r a l

e x p r e s s i o n.

Thanks to the Miss Rumphius Effect for the challenge: Write a poem about school supplies.