What do I have at my disposal?
A knack for always wanting to write
My intuitive messages down.
But it’s got no substance,
It’s got no meat.
I’m all bread and cheese and
Condiment without any meat.
It’s fitting for a vegan, I suppose,
But not for a poet.
The poet has to lead breadcrumbs
For the reader in order to get to the meat
Of the poem, the substance, the protein.
Where is it?
I’m lacking substance where I have all these
Nice little toppings and sauces and vegetables,
I have a dipping sauce for this sandwich,
But no meat!
I have to go to the store,
I have to keep honing my skill.
I have to develop a hunger for meat.

The crack of a coke can
Takes me back
To summer days
We woke up
You came over
I made some sandwiches
We shared the same plate

Bread from waxed paper packet
a childhood memory of mum making tea
snow white, thick sliced
fringed with a brown crust
comfortingly heavy, ****** smelling
the butter pleases me
covered under the tub lid
with a coated paper peeled back
to reveal a thick golden slab of
churned cream easily spread, cold
straight from the fridge onto waiting
fibrous surface, allowing it to sink in
cheese in a yellow block, related to
the butter in so many ways, dairy
a long lost brother, sliced thick with
a proper knife with the pointed curved
tip, designed to ***** and pick up
each slice, placing carefully on the bed
prepared for it to rest, ready for the final
ochre coloured element, mustard, from
a glass jar using a teaspoon, to dollop
before resting a second buttered slice
on top to make a creation, a taste sensation

Old breadcrumbs litter the placemat where
my little one had sat that morning.

That morning I told her she was running too
late to finish the PB&J with fine
pineapple pieces she had made for herself.
She gobbled the thing up in seconds, and with
a mouth still full she walked over and mumbled
bye. I wiped juice leaking out the corner, and
with a snort and a kiss to her forehead I
said see ya’, have fun. And with that she was out
the door, her red backpack one strapped like the
baseball boys did.

All that’s left are these breadcrumbs. I can’t
get myself to clean them up and throw
them away. I see them every day,
every meal, every middle of the
night as I peck on pineapple PB&Js.

As much as I know these crumbs must go, I don’t
regret for a second letting her eat that sandwich
the way she did. It was hell to raise such a rebel,
but she was never going to let anyone stop
her from what she wanted, including me. And she
makes me proud. I’ll clean it up eventually, but
for now, my little one’s breadcrumbs stay.


-
Aleksander Mielnikow (Alek the Poet)

After a neat little bite
She slid his sandwich into its baggie
And smiled,
Never tiring of her little joke.

“See, it’s alright. Im here with you, having a little fun!”

After the bell he peered into the bag.
And there it was
And a note:
“I love you, Aaron. “

This morning’s mixture of boredom and fear punctuated by her love

Then he daydreamed of helping with the clothespins,

Sheets snapping in the wind

A shadow cast across the room
Adopts a lonely size
Familiar, singular;
Belonging to a bride’s.

The turning of a curtain’s cord,
As the breeze blows by,
Rattles in an empty room
Which was occupied.

What good are words that can’t be heard
Or read by whom they’re for?
An open fist that grasps for wind
And memories from before.

She’s waiting in a wedding dress
Perhaps her groom is late?
But that is fine, she has the time;
Forever thirty-eight.

I walked into a sandwich shop with a woman who believed in meditation and growling at the dirt in the desert. We saw a well dressed black man and we were 5,280 miles away from him, but he had a nice suit, so I said so.

She was like a loaf of bread
Unexpecting and unafraid
She didn't expect him to cut into her
Severing her from the feeling of being whole

She also didn't expect for him
To plaster her with sweet honey and jam
He filled her with so much sugar,
But his sweetness was a simple distraction

How could she have known he would consume
The delicious treat he made of her
Only to tire of the taste
And allow the rest to go to waste ?

Though there is such tragedy do not fret,
There is still beauty there in every crumb
He may have taken her apart
But now her next love will have room to overflow

She is the most desired pastry of all
She turns her crumbs into cake
The delicious treat she makes of herself
Will never go to waste