Showing posts with label food poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food poem. Show all posts

Friday, September 4, 2020

Avocado

And here we have 
a globular gem
encased in a clear
sunrise over bright
green hills. All is 
finished in fine,
pebbled leather
that ages toward black.

The name became
hybridized, starting
as the native plant
ahuacatl, shifting into
aguacate, settling
into avocado
which resonates
with the sound 
of a secret and just
society.

After disassembling
and devouring one,
we always wish to do
something with the hard
sphere surviving--
perhaps invent a sport
around it, such as
avocado billiards
or symbolic soccer.

But we feel a bit 
lethargic after ingesting
yellow and green.
Waking from a nap,
we notice once again
that the little brown
planet has left our
solar system. 


hans ostrom 2020


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Garbanzo Opera

When I was six, garbanzo
beans felt like grainy
mud-pebbles to my mouth.
They tasted like a menacing

nothing. When I picked
them out of a salad
and marched them to the edge
of the plate, a parent's

order became inevitable:
"Finish them." Finishing them,
I gagged. They became
soft bullets of

esophageal assassination.
Now I love the little
bastards. I bathe them
in olive oil, bequeath

unto them garlic and pepper.
I now know their nom de
guerre: chick peas.
People may not

change, but their taste-
buds do, and I would pay
good money to go to
see a garbanzo opera.



hans ostrom 2013