larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)
[personal profile] larryhammer
For Poetry Monday:


Mud Soup, Carolyn Kizer

Had the ham bone, had the lentils,
Got to meat store for the salt pork,
Got to grocery for the celery.
Had the onions, had the garlic,
Borrowed carrots from the neighbor.
Had the spices, had the parsley.
One big kettle I had not got;
Borrowed pot and lid from landlord.

Dice the pork and chop the celery,
Chop the onions, chop the carrots,
Chop the tender index finger.
Put the kettle on the burner,
Drop the lentils into kettle:
Two quarts water, two cups lentils.
Afternoon is wearing on.

Sauté pork and add the veggies,
Add the garlic, cook ten minutes,
Add to lentils, add to ham bone;
Add the bayleaf, cloves in cheesecloth,
Add the cayenne! Got no cayenne!
Got paprika, salt and pepper.
Bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer.
Did I say that this is summer?
Simmer, summer, summer, simmer.
Mop the floor and suck the finger.
Mop the brow with old potholder.

Time is up! Discard the cheesecloth.
Force the mixture thru the foodmill
(Having first discarded ham bone).
Add the lean meat from the ham bone;
Reheat soup and chop the parsley.
Now that sweating night has fallen,
Try at last the finished product:

Tastes like mud, the finished product.
Looks like mud, the finished product.
Consistency of mud the dinner.
(Was it lentils, Claiborne, me?)
Flush the dinner down disposall,
Say to hell with ham bone, lentils,
New York Times's recipe.
Purchase Campbell's. Just add water.
Concentrate on poetry:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee
You can bet the banks were muddy,
Not like Isle of Innisfree.


The shadows of Hiawatha are long, long shadows.

---L.

Subject quote from The Earthly Paradise, Bellerophon in Lycia, William Morris.

Date: 29 April 2019 10:42 pm (UTC)
sovay: (Rotwang)
From: [personal profile] sovay
Consistency of mud the dinner.
(Was it lentils, Claiborne, me?)


The parenthesis made me laugh.

Date: 30 April 2019 08:43 am (UTC)
shewhomust: (bibendum)
From: [personal profile] shewhomust
The poem's terrific: but I can't figure out how it is possible to go so wrong with lentil soup (even with all that summer simmering, which is probably my favourite line).

Date: 1 May 2019 12:08 pm (UTC)
graydon: (Default)
From: [personal profile] graydon
"had the lentis"; if the lentils are old enough, the lentil soup shall go wrong with a terrible certainty.

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