#baking
How much do I like you?
So sweet
whipping into the delicateness of a hen's
first egg
I cannot remember
when I last had one of my own
or if I'd like to make you a father
on this Saturday afternoon
perhaps sometime in our five year plan.
Give or take never.
You make me feel domestic, and perfectly correct when I hold your hand not so gently
and lead you to meet my not so friends.
I remember to fold the flour in
to not disturb the tranquility of
the careful balance of ingredients nestled in my secondhand bowl.
You are always offering
to get me a brand new one
but I bite my lip
and secretly wish
you will just be happy
with something familiar.
May 1
May 1, 2026 at 12:18 AM UTC
Before dawn cracks its yolk over the kitchen sill,
her knuckles bloom white in the flour cloud—
a storm in a ceramic bowl.
Sugar grains dissolve like forgotten constellations
in the well of warm milk she pours,
swirling with yeast’s quiet alchemy.
This is how we measure time:
not by clocks, but the stretch of gluten,
the sigh of dough beneath a damp cloth.
Her palms press valleys into the yielding mass,
mine, small and tentative, follow
the landscape of her movements—
ridge and furrow, heel and crescent fold.
We knead silence into elastic gold,
palm to palm, a language without vowels.
Cinnamon freckles the rolled-out canvas,
brown sugar rivers darkening under our spread thumbs.
Her wrist’s map of veins, blue as twilight,
guides the knife slicing ribbons of coiled years.
In the oven’s breath, they swell—
slow serpents of steam curling from fissures,
carrying the scent of burnt sugar and patience.
Later, at the scarred oak table,
she breaks a braid apart.
Butter melts into honeycomb crevices.
My fingers, sticky with proof,
mirror the tremor in hers
as she lifts a piece to my mouth.
The taste: wheat and woodsmoke,
a century-knotted apron string
still warm around us both.
When she smiles,
flour dusts her cheek
like the ghost of every Sunday
before this one.
Mar 29
Mar 29, 2026 at 1:24 AM UTC
I'm sorry,
I don't let it show,
I pretend I don’t care,
But please just know,
The brownies meant:
“I’m glad you’re there.”
Dec 17, 2025
Dec 17, 2025 at 4:16 PM UTC
I smell the bread baking
and I’m reminded of your soft hands
touching that fleshy dough.
You make me hungry.
As steam and hot scent
escape from the oven door,
I see our reflection in the glass.
My face is covered in sweat.
Though you give me a generous slice,
hot and sweet with salted butter;
even while the taste still lingers,
I want more.
Nov 23, 2025
Nov 23, 2025 at 9:08 AM UTC
Smelling the bread bake,
reminds me of your soft hands.
You make me hungry.
As steamy hot scent
escapes from that oven door,
I’m covered in sweat.
You pass me a slice,
hot with sweet, salted butter.
I burn my fingers.
Nov 23, 2025
Nov 23, 2025 at 7:43 AM UTC
if the work is talking
and it wants to be known
then the talker is known
for talking
if the work is taking
and it wants to be known
then the taker is known
for taking
if the work is baking
and it wants to be known
then the baker is known
for baking
if the work is faking
and it wants to be known
then the faker is known
for faking
if the work
wants to be known
then it is known
Nov 23, 2025
Nov 23, 2025 at 12:13 AM UTC
a little touch, melting
as all good things, remembered
only as sensation:
the walls and the floor stir on and on
to dissolve without melting, a small (aq) at the side
but to release? too much and too little held
too little to hold, a useless spoon
it drips into a stillborn flow
I serve my everything on a table:
gateaux and layers, any more than bread
you have to take something, there’s no nothing to refuse
you can’t be refusal, even that is served
you can’t be full, you need to be hungry
you can’t be nothing,
please don’t be nothing
I lie when I say I want you free,
In a cage, maybe,
dissolute in my precious vial
no, melting is different
I want solid things! I only complain about my state because I’m secure in it!
and there’s no significance to early Thursday breakfasts which I didn’t fold in myself
I miss the sugar you gave to my batter;
it’s cloying when I do it,
I missed Thursday and now it’s Friday
but I still want Thursday till Friday curdles
lined in rows of half-empty cups
the unrisen mix of every lost morning:
flour & water, basic lifeblood,
glutinous river molding
the great mound of delicacy:
things burn left in the oven too long, even sugar
especially sugar
Aug 31, 2025
Aug 31, 2025 at 10:30 PM UTC
“***What does baking require of us?
It requires patience, thoughtfulness, an eye to your surroundings, otherwise known as
simply paying attention and responding accordingly.***”
more gourmand than gourmet,
who believes like the firmament above
that the transportation of
the human soul is enlightened,
enlivened
by the aroma of scent of
an endless freshly baked loaf of bread
need to confess,
never held
a rolling pin,
nor had a mustache white
made of flour
upon my face,
and if ere the toaster oven
had not been
installed invested or even invented
in a kitchen,
the only thing
I would ever have
preheated is the body
of a woman who truly
was loved
complete and insane
daily for
sixteen
years
but the perfume of a
newly baked brioche
can bring me to
tears
just as a newly unearthed,
the child of a poem
writhing within me
emerging, even surging
from the soiled placenta
of my
souled~soiled mind&heart,
borne and born
yeah,
even
bre(a)d
so I read an article about
a baker from France,
reading the words above
and wonder
what did I miss,
forfeit,
after a lifetime liftoff of
a badly chosen careered life
that i did trust love
or so I thot!
“***wondering why bakers are the way
they are. There is a quietness, and a kindness, to their lives that veers into almost monastic behavior. Perhaps it is simply the ancientness of being a fire maker — tending a hearth really brings something out in a person.***”
how I glowed and flowed
with recognition of the
esprit de corps
(borrowed identically
from French to our
Anglais lexicon)
in all acts of creation,
a fabulous trade,
a new conception
eye spied on the streets of
My Manhattan
understood the mesmerizing
heat of a crackling fire
for children of all ages
and the why~when
the birth canal opens,
I must be alone with
the quietude that
tries and fails
to hold the raging
heated hot juices inside,
kept nope, not in check,
so formatting them into
a disc shape,
lest they spill unseeded floored,
a pour of ooze,
crisping the lost flesh
of flames eradicating
from
the plenitude distractions of
short term, this modern life
<>
Sunday,
in my America is a holy day,
a sabbatical
marked by rituals sacred,
brunch, football games
or maschostically
even two on a
Josephian
coat of
many colored channels
all this followed by
with a desert tray of
patisserie,
PBS (1) ****** mystery tv shows
of British origin
for a somewhat lessened
yet still violent contested cultural
amuse bouche
In between,
the ladies squeeze in
a Great British Baking Show,
which says when suggested
you’ve been bested
and
‘Yo Boy,
time to **** Nat
them deserts make you fatter,
by mere visual osmosis’
and contemptible contemplation
and that contested kitchened
atmosphere
antithetical to introspective
inspection
which life ingested in you
overly oveyly
aplenty
in placed,
so now I wonder
if this,
a career chosen
by youthful me,
the maledom masculine shouting of the
traditional trading room,
where ego was nourished
within a veneer of analytics,
rationed rationales reasoned,
was down to the nearest $ sign,
was it
the right place for me,
and how it sponsored within me,
a need ultimately
to sit
in ancien worn
by fig & vine
in uncomfortable Adirondack thrones,
a bright need
to sit by the
saluting salutation waves of
a constant lapping bay,
and the conversation of
a current thrusting empowered
tidal basin rivers
waters both
lightly salted fresh water
in piety poetic
combination,
all fed by genteel
small mountain streams,
all flowing, by gravity sent,
to assemble ingredients
of
verbs, noun words in
an adjectival temple,
unkempt kept simple,
in different voices
well hid **** deep
beneath his skin, his bone,
for to simply order up;
a bake off up,
a meringue of
poems
and to better understand what
our well definable,
oh so human
l i f e
***requires,
even demands
without surcease,
of us***?
all the while
we
twogether
areexpelling the rap we
breathe
and the scented heaven
of holy wine and
unlimited
loaves of
yup,
b r e a d
nmlipstadt
Oct 15, 2024
Oct 15, 2024 at 1:01 PM UTC
Me and my journal
Got those old country blues.
Turns out,
White hot heat
Doesn’t make
for a 'Brown River, Smile'.
So,
I cried some.
Then bought eggs. And flour.
And sugar. And butter, for cake
And made one.
Because young life during hard times
In old country
Isn’t left with much else
to do–
Just make something beautiful
And hope to get through.
Jul 17, 2022
Jul 17, 2022 at 10:16 PM UTC
When the baker bakes the baked bakery bakes,
Do they also bake the recipe required?
What's the recipe for a poem?
Does the poet pen the poetical poem poetically to pen their pretty poems?
What temperature do you bake ink-
To make it a bestseller?
How much baking powder do you bake into a page
To perfect its pagey turny pageiness?
What kinda poem crust does a poem become encrusted in?
Should it crumble?
Should it rhyme?
Should it cry a melodrama so dramatic that drama llamas like “that too much drama!”?
Wait,
Where did drama llama come into this?
Who else is in the kitchen cooking this poem pie?
Is the poem pie perfectly pied in its drama crust?
WAIT-
we forgot about the filling…
What do you put in a poetical poem pie?
Should I peach the pied poem?
The peaches plumpy peachy smile?
(i’m not sure how the drama llama feels about that)
Should I fill the peachy pied poem with orange and lemon citrus ?
A little bit of snazz to the snazzy apple pie.
Crap, I forgot the apples as well.
Well now my peachy pied lemony apple-orange poem is too long!
And i still don’t know what temperature to torch these thoughts at!
Well the pied piper pipes in that maybe my peachy pied poem needs some pepper
To pipe the spice to pied poem levels!
But lemony apple-orange peachy pied poems with pepper seems a touch peppery for simple pied poems to be.
But who ever said a poem pied can’t have spice and everything nice WITH lemon and apple and orange and peachy fuzzy smiles?
So,
My peachy peppered pied lemony appley orangy poemy is piping hot to boot.
Now i just need to figure out whos gonna eat the **** thing.
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 3:27 PM UTC
Cooking is
The mastery of intuition
It is knowing, smelling, tasting perfection
Before the simmering soup completes its wearisome journey
It’s love
Sep 22, 2021
Sep 22, 2021 at 6:40 PM UTC
He received a candy cloud that contains ‘L. O .V. E ‘
shaped smile.
She then turned on an electric
sky oven. Autumn baking mode: +/- 272x
Havent you agreed with “(M&M)Theorem states?
…
The cream + the skim milk would bring the same price as the whole milk
Only if there were no costs of our separation …
Aug 13, 2021
Aug 13, 2021 at 11:15 AM UTC
Strawberry jam; it's so sweet and crisp
Pour it in the batter; give it a whisk
Now take the pan and pour it in
And let the baking begin!
You wait a while; 15 minutes or so
And take it out; remember how it was batter 15 minutes ago?
Well now it's sweet and hot in the pan,
Thanks to the addition of some strawberry jam!
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 9:31 PM UTC
Wound with joy and cheer
Unaware of the danger near
Moments away
Racing mind, rather absent
Hurry, hurry, hurry-!
Outcry echoes throughout the space
What searing pain
Heat from surface to flesh
Red as ripest tomato
Forming spots of pale white
Oh dear, what plight
- Jay M
January 8th, 2021
Jan 8, 2021
Jan 8, 2021 at 1:18 PM UTC
I stand in the kitchen
not really present
talking about baking potatoes
with my husband.
For a second
the girl who baked potatoes
in so many other people's kitchens
looks out of these woman's eyes
awed at the fact
that she can bake potatoes
in her own kitchen.
In that instant the woman
receives as a gift
the incredible pleasure
of baking potatoes
in her own kitchen,
and is grateful.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 4:01 PM UTC
I burned my hand making Christmas cookies
for my small chosen family-
hoping that it is enough to thank them
for keeping me from falling headfirst
and loosing myself to my own mind.
Dec 20, 2020
Dec 20, 2020 at 11:03 PM UTC
Chilly autumn mornings-
Kitchen tiles cold on my feet,
Baking bread and butter fill the air with laughs,
A recipe my grandma knew by heart,
Measured in pinches and handfuls,
Started before the sun had it's first cup of Joe,
I would sit by the heat vent,
With a blanket she knitted,
And try to warm up,
Gnawing on cinnamon rolls made from extra dough,
Chewy, unglazed, rich and tasty,
She taught me to love the art.
Aug 29, 2020
Aug 29, 2020 at 8:33 PM UTC
I had a notebook filled with thoughts
These odd thoughts of mine.
One day I lost my notebook.
I left my thoughts behind.
My thoughts about the pains caused
When cruel things were said.
About my love of music
About wishing I was dead.
About the way my mind works,
The decisions that I make.
The friends I think hate me
The food I want to bake.
Do I want lace lingerie?
Or pretty little knives?
Should I learn to dance a waltz
Or practice how to drive.
Some thoughts were about projects
Some homework on my mind.
Have I worked hard enough?
Have I been kind?
This book was filled with all the things
That others should not know.
And now I cannot find it,
Where did my thoughts go?
If you come across them, please let me know.
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 12:52 AM UTC
I.
I have accepted my fate;
My inability to move, to speak
The fast-paced switching of scenes
Each time I get to blink.
I do understand the gap—
The pressure of compactibility; claustrophobia
Interferance may set you ablaze–
Or so I told myself.
II.
It has always been like this:
An ever-repeating cycle
The blending and molding
Into what I ought to be.
Time became my comfort
As I warmed and accepted change
Pieces of me were scattered
Now, I am complete.
Oct 20, 2018
Oct 20, 2018 at 9:06 PM UTC
So
I hate
HATE
washing dishes. But I don't
discriminate (pots and
pans and spoons and measuring
cups are also on my *****
list)
So
when I bake
in a microwave,
in one bowl,
with one mixing fork,
and no measuring tools,
it's sort of kind
of a bit of
a miracle
when the baked thing rises
AND it
tastes
ok
Feb 22, 2020
Feb 22, 2020 at 2:11 AM UTC
It is snowing in Alaska
That might sound obvious
Since we're halfway through November
But its only really snowed once
Our state should be covered in flour
Like pie dough or potato bread
Instead we have a light sprinkling
Of dandruff on our northern head
Nov 24, 2019
Nov 24, 2019 at 12:39 AM UTC
A little bit of sugar
a tiny pinch of salt
A couple of spoonfuls of cinnamon.
I single chocolate drop
throw it in some flour
and add a cup of milk
That is how you bake something
I hope that it did help.
Now mix the ingredients, until they blend so well
and you'll have a mixture
that looks as delicious as it smells.
Then put it in the oven
set it to bake
take it out when the timer dings
and you'll have yourself a cake.
Nov 22, 2019
Nov 22, 2019 at 10:22 AM UTC