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g clair Sep 2013
Like sugar from a shaker, snow falls on Saul the baker
delivering steamy biscuits from the shop he calls his home
to a drafty run down mansion where the princess on her pension
can be testy with her tension, hence she's living on her own.

Today he took her order, "One fresh bagel, for a quarter
'cause I haven't seen the likes of one since I left my childhood home".
Well he'd never baked a bagel, but he's not one to finagle
and wanting just to please her, finds a recipe from Rome.

And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind~
no woman's gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.

So to win her deep affection he packs up his best confection
takes his chances on the back roads, now iced over in the storm.
Finds her waiting in the foyer with her thrifty 5 cent lawyer
complaining 'bout the day old bread and... "this bagel isn't warm!"
So..... he heats it on the fire, 'cause her heart is his desire
but she won't accept the bagel for it's not quite the right form

And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind
no woman gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.

So he runs back to his bagel board and pounds the dough and rolls a cord
and shapes the perfect circle to a bagel lovers dream,
He boils and then he bakes it and to her mansion then he takes it
piping hot but now she wants it with churned butter from fresh cream!

Well he's starting to get antsy but he knows the farmer, Clancy
whose butter is fresh-churned and known by counties far and wide.
He heads out to the pasture and he buys what he is after
and returns to find, 'tis so unkind, the princess, she had died.

The baker in his stricken state swallows the bagel off the plate
he calls the cops, pulls out the stops and serves the day old bread.
He gives the details more than once of how he ate the evidence
and though he thought his story bought, they arrested him instead.

"Tis a likely story", was the only thing he heard
although they'd bought his baked goods, they could not buy his word.
"The Baker is a Butcher", is what the tabloid said,
"better to take your bagel cold than take it in the head."

But all was not as it appears, she owed the butcher in arrears
and when they went to check her craw they found a hunk of mutton.
It ended all without a trial, the butcher he did reconcile
and posted "Pay the butcher now and do not to be a glutton."

And Saul was thinking to himself, " I must be way out of mind",
no woman's gonna want a baker's life",
but he carried deep inside his heart the will to be a friend
and it turned rather nicely as she willed him in the end.
Robert Ronnow Mar 2018
Lonely bagel
Loneliness bagel
The bagel of loneliness

Togetherness bagel
The bagel of being together
Bagel of belonging
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Ann Williams Ms Apr 2017
He’s got a bagel on his head (February 28 2017).
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;

Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;

Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;

No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;

No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.

Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/fight-on-uk-train-after-people-kept-placing-bagels-on-travellers-heads

And they sang: He’s got a bagel on his head.
Ann Williams Ms Apr 2017
He’s got a bagel on his head (February 28 2017).
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;

Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;

Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;

No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;

No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.

Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/fight-on-uk-train-after-people-kept-placing-bagels-on-travellers-heads

And they sang: He’s got a bagel on his head.
Joel Todero May 2015
jumping across rooftops in the broad sunlight. it's morning and i'm headed to a bagel shop to get a blueberry cream cheese bagel. beautiful sunny day kind of music is playing through my headphones. from building to building, roof to roof, gutter to gutter i jump in my worn out shoes. Friday mornings aren’t usually this nice out, there’s not even a cloud in the sky. i can tell i’m getting close because of the smell in the air. jump down a fire escape and head inside. David is working at the counter this morning, and he’s excited to see a friend, as usual. i order and he throws an extra bagel in the bag as he usually does. David is a great guy. outside the world greets me warmly, it’s like 80 degrees out. are you kidding me? it’s April. it’s beautiful. i’m going to go bare foot down to the beach and draw some pictures of the waves. see you later.
Ann Williams Ms Apr 2017
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;

Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;

Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;

No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;

No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.

Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/fight-on-uk-train-after-people-kept-placing-bagels-on-travellers-heads

And they sang: He’s got a bagel on his head.
KorbydAngyle May 2021
The Bagel Ditty
You were dreaming of bagels
Today... last night, I believe
If I were a bakers son,
I'd have a bagel everyday
Tens of millions of people together eating
of perfect hope
Melting soak, crisping toast, the best of humanity
Together dreaming of bagels,
Instead of I, we
We can have salmon lox, pretty garlic onion pocks
Soothing trust of a lush swath of clean cream cheese,
Together we were dreaming of dozens and dozens,
These dreams the same that we eat for breakfast,
Though any time of day,
any can confess, for that a bagel,
makes a great mystical round way
Be proud, those are known to be strong who consume
The dream of the bagel
Which now the hole world shall sing...
This morning I dreamt of this the mighty
The bagel tune must 'O' ring !
minor edit, thought this was interesting...?!, perhaps, it conveys how truly off the cusp of reality my thinking has finally gotten!
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2020
doubly toasted rye bread...
anything on it...
of course i'm not going to treat it
as a bagel: although i should...
some smoked salmon...
the mayo and cucumber and dill...
come to think of it...
toasted rye bread would work
better than a bagel...

        we're not having some brick lane
salted beef, and bagel...
salted beef... good that you asked...
what makes it so... cosmopolitan, i.e. pink?
himalayan salt... i was thinking of
prague salt... don't ask me why...
how? i heard it down the line...

again: larry tesler died a few weeks ago...
well "weeks"... 20th of feb of this year he
passed away... as reported...
larry tesler... it's not an everyday
name... but under the umbrella of darwin that
becomes darwinism:
a group-fire, a get-together, a come-together...
larry tesler is a bit like
a michael faraday...  

           somewhat of a "mystery"...
like... never... i was daring to confess:
those revisions of the cursor...
the phantom hand... of a 2D object in a 3D
object... those 2D ferns in the original
tom raider... moving rapidly when approached...

i can hear the bemoaning...
no new scientific "theory" has resounded true
in the past decade...
unless it's that Higgs': hiccup or... boson...
that only happened a few years ago...

don't... agitate... the... beehive!
i've finished one whiskey and ms. coca
ms. venezuela - ms. novella...
             but i'm still pretending to drink from
an empty glass -
perhaps agitating the whiffs of scotch
perfumes to come...

       how often do i use the larry tesler
method?
well... if i want some... braille...
some glagolitic... some runes...
pretty much all the time...

        toasted rye bread... i'm thinking of eating
some roasted rye bread...
the english being bewildered...
and that's because the former raj
brought with them the cinnamon the cardamom...
ever eaten a curry that listed
rosemary or thyme as a prime ingredient?
can i please just eat this
dogshit, then?

    sourdough bread... not pop enough...
  beside the zeppelins... rye bread galore...
pumpernickel bread... a german thing...
   the name changes... but...
there's only so much toasted white and brown
bread you can eat... before having
an ancient hunger become arise in you...
the baltic cuisine of piquant herrings...
plenty of dill... and rye bread...

- i asked the swabian about this windsor affair
concerning the saxon: the ants-in-his-pants
little brother saxon...
the german who needed to go outside of saxony...
burgundy wouldn't suffice....
had to see the world: become a semite...
a wandering "plague"...
the postman... the dove of "repose"...

this is still about larry tesler by the way...
               ⠓⠑⠗⠑ - larry tesler...
     ⰕⰖⰕⰀⰣ:             "       "
              ᚺᛖᚱ:              "       "        (ditto, as above)...

woman: a human female being -
          because she's not: woo man...
and she is not: woe, man...

               she's a human female being -
that's what everyone might had said...
when being stripped...
to the basics of grammar:
i, pronoun - definite article: the -
noun of nouns -
                        the in between cardinal nouns...
table, fox, wool...
in between cardinal nouns...
box, moon, whiskey and (conjunction)...
the royal pronoun: one would expect...
the other royal pronoun: we would agree to such
claim... given our entourage...
louis XIV very much liked such
pronouns...
             they are the disembodied courting
presence of ghost: where we should be...
to posit...
and what if i want to be known as: there?
can't a they become a there -
i know that's asking too much...
after all... there is an adverb -
perhaps i feel like... being an: ad- -verb
rather than a pro- -noun...

                          there said: it's a cul de sac
and the peoples are gagging for
lessons in grammar... this is still about larry tesler!
well... it's become more of a toasted
rye bread "analogy"...

to be less denoted by noun -
more associated with verbs -
               does that even matter what pronoun?
what if i want to be an adverb: base?
there is an adverb... here is an adverb...
why is BEING a noun...
and not an adverb?
               become is a verb...
   becoming an adjective: although it could
be stressed as a noun: could...
           i think of being... on the lines
of a "here" and a "there"...
nothing is a pronoun...
                          while nowhere is an adverb...
being is a noun but in all fairness it could
be treated as an adverb...
                                   being alone...
           if only it was as simple as...
turning on a lightbulb while at the same time
expenting falling pirouettes of snow...

all this words deserved to be archived
in trash...
     i'm not a betting man and none of these
grammatical arguments really probe me...
i have invested in them a pet-peeve...
and they're nothing more...
but whenever i hear about them being
stressed... i wonder why the counter
argumentation doesn't fall for talking about
this logic on a purely grammatical level...

to update the tabernacle of holiest of the holy
"pronoun" with...
something akin to... by adverb standards...
etc. -
          this is still about larry tesler, though...
and about toasting some rye bread...
nonetheless -
i'm not that old but i'm already tired...
i imagine eating custard as being...
somewhat alleviating...

                but not actually eating any custard...
just imagining eating it
and pretending to drown - gurgling it...
once more: this is still concerning larry tesler...
mind you... larry tesler doesn't exist
on wattpad...

            but all these other would be publishers...
allow larry tesler to exist...
along with that little gremlin that doesn't work...
i.e. ©... not even new york times has
obstructed larry tesler ctrp + c / ctrl + p...
© - yeah.... "copyright"... my ****** ***...
wattpad has actually made actual © "progress"...
you can't use a larry tesler "heimlich" on:
those most scared of texts...
poems by 16 year olds!

              just saying...
you don't need a bagel to enjoy smoked salmon
with a dollop of mayo some cucumber
and dill... rye bread works just as well...
**** i'm hungry!

- again... what (a pronoun) - sorty of © "copyright"
logo is that... when you can larry tesler that
with... export it via highlight and ctrl c / ctrl p?
wattpad doesn't allow you to ctrl c / ctrl p...
at its height it was publishing that
goldmine of one direction fan fiction by
14 year old cherries...
    
                       i guess you can larry tesler
wikileaks: back in the day...

                        so if not larry tesler... who was behind
ctrl a? does it matter - if there's no toasted
rye bread in my gob... just these words
congesting and subsequently constipating my head?
good thing i have earned myself
a bad back - the golgotha "wisening" /
humbling... of digging up roots in the garden
where trees and shrubs once stood...

these words are... hardly a compensation's
worth of balm... but before i gorge on some toasted
rye... they just have to do.
Amanda Stoddard Aug 2016
I am scared of routine,
and repetition
even though my disorder
longs for it.

Makes it impossible
for me to live comfortably.
Because I want consistency
and when I get it
my other disorder takes over.

It's like a power struggle
between my mental illnesses-
and my mind is an episode
of celebrity death match
no one really wins,
we all just end up ******
and broken
and a joke.

Inconsistency
is like my consistency.

When things
smooth out
like cream cheese
on my favorite bagel-
I'm like **** this is good.

Then I start to worry
about when the bagel
will be come stale
or moldy-
and I don't wanna buy new ones
I like the ones I have ya know?

And the concern takes me over-
no longer even wanting to eat the bagels
because I'm scared they've already molded
even though they probably haven't
even though they're my favorite..

Should I be more poetical about this?
Should I outline this in a different
tone and texture to make
it sound like
I'm something other than I am.

I'm tired of doing all of that-
and I'm tired of using the word I
in all of my ******* poetry.

But it's always about me.
I am a self-involved writer
only writing from my experience
so why wouldn't it be filled
with every single part of me?

Love is something I have never been good at,
especially when it comes to myself.

Someone else tries
and all it does it make me cringe
and I wait for it get moldy and stale -
I'm not actually still talking about the bagel anymore
am I?

Am I?
Am I everything that I say am?
or am I just biting off an Eminem line.
Oh my god I've turned into
the manifestation of Jay-Z
overrated and boring
and attempting to stay relevant
via my love life.

I wish things wouldn't change,
I wish routine stayed routine
and things didn't get so complacent.
The spark always dies in the end
and I always end up becoming
a different version of myself
as soon as I fall in love.

I guess I'm always too scared
too reliant
and too worried no one will want me
when they see the real me.

But in this current scenario
I was 100% the real me first
and then we fell in love
and now I'm at like 75% and free falling.

All because I miss how things were
when friendship made us talk everyday
and we spent a good amount of time apart
so we actually had things to talk about
when we were together.
Now it's all the same again
and I worry about routine
and consistency
more than anything else.

This is what ruined me before-
comfort.
and I need to talk to someone everyday
or I will become too much into my own head
that I think myself into
thinking that everything is going wrong.

It's like I'm trying to find reasons
to not be happy
and I'm so scared of having nothing
that I end up giving myself it anyway.
That way I am safe and not worrying
about when everything will go wrong
because it already is.

I've never been so happy-
and it scares the living **** out of me.
I just want it to be like we used to,
I'm scared of you not trying anymore
because you have me-
it's happened too many times before.

Then you get comfortable
and then I don't matter
and I turn into a bagel
left stale in your bread bin.
I turn into something always there
but never paid attention to.

None of this has happened
but I feel it slowly in my bones
that history will repeat itself
and I will end up lonely
and in love
and hurting all over again.

I just want to feel like
I matter I guess.
Like even though you have me
you'll still try for me.
But we all know how this goes,
and history repeats itself again
and I end up a moldy bagel
waiting to go stale
waiting to be thrown away.

I'm mad at myself again-
so **** forgiving to everyone else

What did I do so wrong to me?
Why can't I let **** go.

Get it together.
You're all you have.
I know it's supposed to be bred,
but because I keep talking about bagels
I wanted to put bread instead, like a pun kind of.
it's a bad joke, but I'm keeping it.
Francie Lynch Jun 2018
The hood won't be the same,
We're out standing in the rain,
To encourage sprouts as we once did our children;
For down the road you see it's as legal,
As a Timmy's and a cream-cheese bagel,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

On this side of our border,
Starting this October,
We'll bake it, vape it, roll and bowl to take it;
Down the road you see it's now legal,
The price of home grown's dropped to zero,
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale and some will eat it;
We're good to grow the free green grass at home.

I'm awake and it astounds me,
My four plants that surround me;
We've realized what we've long been dreaming;
For there's a store where we can cop some,
Come the fall fresh buds will blossom,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.

Yes we're all on board to greet it,
Some inhale, and some will eat it,
We're good to grow our free green grass at home.
Sung to Tom Jones' "Green Green Grass of Home."
*** becomes legal in Canada on October 17th. We're permitted to grow four plants per household. Finally.
A "Timmy" is a Tim Hortons coffee.
Mark Toney Jan 13
I argued with my AI toaster yesterday morning over the proper use of the bagel button. It wouldn't stop arguing even after I repeatedly insisted, "Pointdexter, stop!" I temporarily remedied the situation by leaving the toaster on mute all day. When I unmuted it this morning, it required that I complete an "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHA process before I could make toast. Not just any CAPTCHA process, mind you, but a hidden-object CAPTCHA requiring me to find 42 hidden objects before I could use my toaster! After I successfully slogged through, the AI announced, "CAPTCHA successful. Proceed to make your toast. Please note the bagel button has been disabled."

bagel debacle
AI toaster becomes toast
~ AI feels no pain






© 2024 Mark Toney
Poetry form: Haibun - 01/13/2024 -
undefined Nov 2012
I get genuinely psychotic in the morning
when the sun creeps out to see
If I slept last night I would want to put a gun in my mouth
(breakfast with coffee, black)
just you and me.
I get depressed long and hard, and often feel like
the cream cheese that you scrape off your bagel.
As the hour goes on everyone's two dimensional
(photo-copy of photo-copied, of photo-copy)
and you are scraping your bagel
of the unwanted (but served anyway) cream cheese,
"You," (probably the plastic knife in this analogy) "drive me..."
Spat! in the trash
as your upturned nose tells me how much our days together
are measured in inches, not yards.

— The End —