A monthlong celebration of poetry

April is National Poetry Month, a monthlong, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. To mark the occasion, Tinian English teacher Joseph Connolly and an anonymous contributor submitted the following poems for publication:

Fun with food: Scrumptious Sonnets

By JOSEPH B. CONNOLLY
Special to the Saipan Tribune

When I heard of the demise of Hostess Twinkies I thought, “Oh no!” There goes another edible icon of my childhood. When we went to see my Aunt Margaret in Philadelphia, us five brothers and sisters couldn’t wait to buy some Tandy Takes—two small cream filled cupcakes on a cardboard tray. I’ve heard Twinkies are coming back, though, along with a chocolate drink called Yoohoo. Next I want Fudgcicles and Creamsicles—creamy frozen confections—to make a reappearance. The Demise of French Fried Cutie Pies will have to do ’til then.

Diners At the Big Miss Steak Cafe is about a small restaurant in a time warp where notorious couples drop by for a bite to eat. The menu is global and eclectic in its contents. A few diners readers may not recognize in the café are: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote the consummate book on eating; Federico Fellini, a famous 20th century Italian film director (think La Strada and La Dolce Vita); Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas hosted the expatriate literary scene in Paris (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Samuel Beckett, and Ernest Hemingway, among others). Among other edible items included in their literary salon along with tea were marijuana brownies.

The sonnet What’s for Dessert? provides the stock answer my father actually gave us kids at the dinner table about dessert when we asked for dessert and there was none to be had. We had (PB&J) peanut butter and jelly sandwiches almost every day for school lunch for years. They were always made with Welch’s grape jelly, white Pullman loaf bread, wrapped in wax paper, and placed inside a brown paper lunch bag. No cafeteria at our elementary schools. So a sonnet with fond affection for them, On Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. Last but not least, The Cleanest Cockroach in the World meets its demise in our kitchen.

THE DEMISE of FRENCH FRIED CUTIE PIES

Bully for bakers, bakeries and fried cream filled pies
For the delight of putting them in our mouth to swallow
For sugared donuts baked, fried and filled to the brim
With different fillings, jellies, flavors, shapes and size
Liquids, hot coffee, tea, iced lemonade to follow
Lingering sights and smells after the day grows dim
Comfort foods continue from meringues to muffins
Sweet potato curly fries and WallaWalla onion rings
Gourmet chips, garlic dips and corn dogs to stuff in
Clogging up those veins for a massive heart attack
What did you expect after eating al those things?
As the gluttonous curtain closes and fades to black
Think Moon Pie mortality and Grim Reaper song
As those rolls of fat appear before not too long

DINERS AT the BIG MISS STEAK CAFE’

Antony and Cleopatra –
He suggested trying the Italian ices
She ordered cheetah and lion liver slices
They fed on each others vices

Mr. and Mrs. Hannibal –
She had the alpine appetizer
He drank an elephantine energizer
They fought tooth, molar, and incisor

Pres. Dwight D. and Mamie Eisenhower –
She got White House waffles and drank a lemon lime
He had silver dollar pancakes thin as an Eisenhowere dime
Together they talked about the covers of Time

President U.S. Grant and First Lady Grant –
He said give me any beef steak that hollers
She said that might cost us fifty U.S. dollars
They suffered the heat in horse hair collars

Emperor and Empress Genghis Khan –
She said horse and yak cheese on rye
He had Mongolian stir fry
For dessert they shared a barn swallow pie

Monsieur et Madame Brillat-Savarin –
She poured a pot of chamomile tea
He uncorked a bottle of chablis
They snacked on camembert and brie

Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Meyer –
She toiled over creamy egg custard
He boiled hot dogs with mustard
They fed on what you just heard

Medusa and the Abominable Snowman –
She wanted ratatouille and rattlesnakes
He had corn, fish, and snowflakes
They consumed carotid artery cakes

The Minotaur and the Yeti –
‘It’ said whatever is under the rock
the ‘other’ said any lamb or beef stock
They fed on a Canadian geese flock

Dr. and Mrs. Sigmund Freud –
She ordered pretzel sticks and ice cream
He dished up a daylight dream
As they viewed Edvard Munch’s ‘SCREAM’

Director and Mama Federico Fellini –
She had spinach and fromaggio rigatoni
He gobbled prosciutto and canneloni
Later on lambrusco, biscotti, and spumoni

Stephen Hawking dined alone –
He grilled time over cosmic coals
And baked the Milky Way in a galactic oven
Filled with black holes

Albert Einstein and E=MC2 shared –
A spatial soup of solar storm storks
A sequence of Fibonacci forks
And roasted quail, quirks, and quarks

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
Countless cups of tempestuous tea
Radish and rose petal salads times three
Fresh French breads and bellwether poetry

Guiseppi Canoli and Miss Muffelata –
Ensalada di Alessandro Scarlatti
Curds and whey ala Gian Carlo Menotti
Angel hair pasta di Cecilia Bartolli

WHAT’S FOR DESSERT ?

“What’s for dessert?” I heard my brother ask
On his third cup of coffee, Daddy said,
“You kids get to work, I’ll give you a task.
Be grateful we’ve got milk, butter and bread.”
We were dreaming of chocolate chip cookies,
Seven layer Black Forest cherry cake,
Butterscotch ice cream, lemon sherbert freeze,
Or a thick chocolate malted milk shake;
Banana pudding, apple rhubarb pies,
Walnut fudge brownies enormous in size,
Orange Jell-O, fruit salad, nuts in a cup…
Dad continued, “As soon as you’re able
I want you and your brother to get up,
Clear the dishes and desert the table.”

ON PEANUT BUTTER and JELLY SANDWICHES

Synchronicity found in this sandwich,
Where seemingly disparate food fillings lie
Side by side like slime on mud in a ditch
Between slices of bread as if in a pie

The peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
If applied when there is heat in the bread
Makes the sandwich so melting good munchy
Lets the jam or jelly easily spread

In synch they are all terrific tasty creations
These jams, preserves, marmalades, and jellies:
Grape, plum, cherry, or berry combinations,
Some made at home with pectin and spices,
Add peanut butter and two bread slices,
To put these lunch time treats in your bellies.

THE CLEANEST COCKROACH in the WORLD

the cleanest cockroach in the world
emerged from my kitchen sink today
crawling out with its antennae curled
and a pine soap scented bouquet

I speared it with a toothpick
poked through its thorax I guess
pitched it into the garbage with a flick
down with the rest of the kitchen mess

it died quickly and it died clean
but left many of its cousins behind
they grow so fast it’s almost obscene
on breadcrumbs and watermelon rind

that roach was as big as my thumb
wouldn’t fit in any roach trap hotels
its clever cousins are not so dumb
falling under no magic formula spells

So Mr. Clean cockroach is dead and gone
my old stainless steel sink now shines
and on some insect’s heavenly lawn
a fine smelling cockroach now dines

***
Pains of Paradise

By A PACIFIC ISLANDER

As I look out across the glimmering blue sea
My heart is heavy with worry of what might come to be
As the ocean with its continuous tides and flow
My mind thinks back to a time when life was good it made me hopeful
As the low tide comes as sure as can be
My soul searches and yearns for my conscience to be clear and free
As the high tide will also return eventually
My dream lives on to live a life with more moments of peace and tranquility