"baguette" poems
A breadcrumb I am - the morsel of my old dough,
a piece of chewed bread rotten, missed near a toe,
shredded by the sons of righteousness and “normality”,
entombed I am under the carpet to fulfil “morality”.
Mum added the yeast for me to grow, as well as flour,
Hoping my crust would golden as a vivid live flower,
She sprinkled little salt into me, to know the grimes,
Sugar too, for life brings out the salt to eyes, at times.
Dad poured the water, to soften toughness uncalled,
For man is kind too, not merely clay masked, walled -
And above all, they added affection and compassion,
They wanted me to satisfy mineself, not one’s ration.
Into the oven, 9 minutes, under fire: I show colors,
The warmth turned the heart warm for all others;
I am left to rest, to harden the shell and eternal body,
To be perfect as ma and pa wish: not adverse, shoddy.
But the stale, unpuffed, unfresh bread of this world,
covets but loathes what is good and not yet twirled,
It wishes for me to inhibit mold and evict dignity,
Mais allez, étrange moi, expose me not to malignity.
The least of their gurgling sounds puncture heads,
And the weakest of their advice the spirit dreads;
The making of me is the capacity of mine flexes,
Your ingredients suit not me, mortals and sexes.
Days yearn for you, not this battle of complexes:
You, mine old dough who suddenly “complex” is,
My parents baked me on low heat nice and gentle,
And they sear me with words not for me, mental!
Know you: Pita, Kmajj, Brioche, Shrak, or Baguette,
Bread is bread, could be different, but it is no threat.
Jan 18, 2023
Jan 18, 2023 at 9:27 AM UTC
i always thought that comparing
photography to painting
would be hard,
but then i read an article about
a girl with a baguette,
in the jardin de plantes
looking up at a kerfuffle
being pestered by sparrows,
having henri cartier-bresson
take a picture and i thought...
*one brush stroke of colour,
after watching a blank canvas
for about an hour.*
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 7:25 AM UTC
In times of clarity, or perhaps
Moments of weakness
(Depending on one's perspective)
My greatest fear, I think,
Is that of dying without achieving
Anything worthy of mention.
The idea of being so ordinary
That your death
(or rather, your life)
Will be rapidly evaporated
from the earth's memory
Like light rain on a molten tarmac afternoon.
But you, at least on a mentally strong day,
Delude yourself with bursts of creativity:
Poetry, film, ideas of grandeur,
All of which persuade you that either
You will not die for a long time,
Or you will someday soon achieve.
This thought is comforting
And all is well.
Until one day you are having
A particularly busy teaching day,
And you rush to the usual spot
To grab a regular taste of Dublin life,
And order your chicken fillet roll:
Lifeblood of an Irish working-man's lunch,
And you eat while you walk -
Both briskly to save time before
Rejoining the rich children.
And the slobbering mouthful of
Delightful chicken baguette
Casts taco sauce from its grasp,
And dribbles down your pubey beard.
You stop and take a finger to it,
Knowing full well that the damage is
Done and that those hairs will grip
To the smell of taco sauce until
The drain tastes their defeat after
A particularly overzealous shower.
And it is in that moment,
With finger and beard stained with
The orange-tinged blood of a chicken fillet roll,
That your ordinariness and worthlessness become apparent
And it destroys you...
Because you always thought taco sauce was spicy.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 5:52 PM UTC
Drinking up your dark roast
With your stub cigarette
I fell for you down sideways
A mouth full of baguette
My French country vacation
A choking silhouette
My sandals went off walking
In a place I won’t forget…
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 5:39 PM UTC
Five days a week
for six months now
I have crossed the street
from work
to the little shop
that sells sticky buns
pork nuzzled by pastry
and perused the food
something for lunch
and almost always pick
a baguette brimming with chicken
chilled cucumber disks
a sprinkling of lettuce
plus a muddy-coloured latte
for that extra afternoon kick
though today is different
I’m feeling ruthless
a shimmery packet of salt and vinegar
waits for me to pluck it
from the shelf
squeak it open
the lady says hi and I reply
with a we’ve spoken
five days a week for six months now
and it’s about time I told you
these small encounters
brighten my day
a rotten cliché I know
so I leave quick with my grub
but a tiny grin on my face
unwrap the baguette
take a satisfying bite
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
The girl in the canary yellow dress
tosses her dried baguette crumbs onto the dirt.
With 35mm eyes her parents watch
as flying beggars swoop down
to feast on a simple meal.
Neon signs flash, blending in with the
clicks of the tourists.
Words blinking in a language
foreign to her own.
*Beastialité!
Deux jeunes filles,
une tasse!*
Her dark ringlets bounce in
the breeze from the red windmill,
where Nini-legs-in-the-air once cut rugs.
A whisper reaches her,
calling in a language she has
yet to learn.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 6:01 PM UTC
Mon aux deux tiers divine,
Toute laine et marjolaine
De douceur et délicatesse,
Courrais-tu, bufflesse, les steppes
Avec ton ombre d'argile
A la recherche du plant de jouvence
Semé aux Treize Cyclones
Qui hantent les îles-fleurs du bout du monde ?
A chaque cyclone aux ailes brisées
Qu'offrirais-tu, Gilgamesh, mon ombre immortelle
Dans le nigredo causal et a-causal où se fond l 'abîme ? ?
Au Cyclone-gel, la baguette et le cerceau ?
Au Cyclone-mauvais, le taureau céleste ?
Au Cyclone-tempête, la Forêt de Cèdres ?
Au Cyclone-rafales, le corps de la Joyeuse ?
Au Cyclone-tourbillons, les hommes-scorpions ?
Au Cyclone-du Nord, les cyprès ?
Au Cyclone-poussières, les gazelles ?
Au Cyclone-du Sud, les Enfers ?
Au Cyclone-de l'Est, le Déluge ?
Au Cyclone-de l 'Ouest, la nuit d'étoiles ?
Au Cyclone-tornade, le sourire des hyènes ?
Au Cyclone-mortifère, le feu éphémère ?
Au Cyclone-souffleur, le feu éternel ?
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 2:44 AM UTC
if i were to bread my tongue
with rocoto and cornmeal
and twist to reach the andean soil
my tastebuds long for so many nights
out of the year
olfaction and your left-sinus blockage
would stay cradled
in broken-baguette bread-crust baskets,
a trebuchet's missile,
naïve to the horn of the world,
and brittled to a carcinogenic crisp
caped in my earthenblood geysers
en el humo, en la tierra del fuego
in(fierno)
i recount by the tally marks of black felt
resorted to in the puddling of spilt tea,
(like broken china, you never missed
a beat to correct potential error
and my memory),
i count them to remember
the epiphanies standing over a red faucet
a gallon water jug, whistling snail-trickle,
wishing away the cracks in the grout
or the grout itself,
wishing away the cracks in the pottery
or porcelain facade of which
you're so fond and grace with singing cuticles
the fingers of a pianist
lacking the wherewithal
and solid brick gall
to answer the ivory's summons
i am not a piece of clay,
i respond poorly to your sculpture of my surface,
covered in oxides and baked in
hell's oven, your mountain fire
scathes me as it does cedar resin
and i am similarly embittered,
pooling sap & draining smoke
in the embers and dead charcoal
of your embrace
avant le corps, sans l'âme
sans le corps, avant l'âme
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
It was the night of Christmas Eve when I was on my own
You came round with Chantelle lowering the festive tone
It was okay until you left and I found that big baguette
Such a time of desperation one time I will not forget
A toilet tragedy I suffered when I discovered your Yule log
Why did you leave that monstrosity inside my ******* bog
I had a drink to calm my nerves but I didn't want to tackle
In the U bend that ******* **** was caught up in the shackle
Trying hard to get rid of that thing with hot water in a bucket
It didn't move with my attempts so I thought "well **** it"
Taking the plunge with pipe unscrewed it wasn't very nice
A gloveless hand you wouldn't want to handle that thing twice
With heavy heart I manhandled that large brown log myself
The size of it I'm petty sure was detrimental to my health
I know that Chocolate logs traditional to celebrate the Yule
Did you have to leave me one made from a combined stool
You blamed Chantelle but I'm not sure if it was her or you
But whichever way you look at it, its a nasty thing to do
So come on just admit it who dealt me that crap card
Getting rid of such a thing well its really rather hard
It really isn't all that much of a Christmas appetizer
Having to disguise it for bin using the local advertiser
Yule be so disgusted if you had crap Christmas news
A real low time of my life with Yule tide log abuse
Next time you decide to call round in the festive mood
Have a **** before you come not meaning to be rude
Don't pass solids in my bog to avoid a repeat performance
I have already reached my peak concerning **** endurance
Use my bog with courtesy without Christmas block activities
I don't want your crap on my hands ruining my festivities
Dec 27, 2017
Dec 27, 2017 at 5:39 AM UTC
I woke up this morning
Sporting a Beret
Speaking in an accent
Parlez-vous francais?
With a scarf around my neck
A pencil thin moustache
Afraid I might have woke up French
A slight giggle to my laugh
With a strong urge for fresh Baguette's
I head to the grocery
I told my cat I'd be right back
He looked at me... Cest la vie
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 11:46 AM UTC
I'm on the train, it's six o'clock
With a hunger bomb, tick tock, tick tock
Which at any moment, will explode
My weight loss goals start to implode
Why not have a small baguette
Who needs a diet, just forget
No one knows, it's not a sin
Just buy that chocolate, stuff it in
How dangerous can a latte be
With that biscuit pack that comes for free
Or maybe just a little wine
Along with nuts, go on it's fine
Determined, I shut out the voice
Stay in charge, I have a choice
I sip some water, shun a snack
And pat myself upon the back
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 4:28 PM UTC
Rain kisses the pavement
Cigarette burnt fingertips
Your warmth is god sent
I taste the salt on your lips
Black umbrellas line the streets
Clam chowder and baguette air
Like a child tucked beneath crisp sheets
Adoration the only stitch I wear
Pacific Ocean’s salt
Rain soaked cheeks
Coy, loving, exalted
We could’ve survived like this for weeks
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 1:49 PM UTC
Liberté Egalité Fraternité,
le vrai Triptyque Républicain
En hommage à nos ancêtres qui surent être ambitieux et fonder un triptyque toujours primordial, jamais accompli ni vraiment réalisé.
LIBERTE !
Frêle comme doigts d’enfants,
Plus précieuse qu’un diamant,
Ton seul parfum nous enivre
Et comme, un bon vin, nous grise.
Tu es hymne à la vie
Qui fait lever des envies.
Tu suscite des passions,
Libère des émotions.
Tu fus conquise de haute lutte
Par nos ancêtres en tumulte.
Ils nous donnèrent pour mission
D’en multiplier les brandons.
A trop de Peuples, elle fait défaut.
Elle ne supporte aucun bâillon
Car si l’être vit bien de pain,
Il veut aussi choisir son chemin.
Si tous les pouvoirs la craignent,
Ma, si belle, tu charmes et envoute,
Mets les tyrans en déroute,
Sœur de Marianne la belle.
***
EGALITE !
Elle fut la devise d’Athènes,
Et révérée par les Romains.
Elle naquit en 89, avec la liberté du Peuple,
Est fille de Révolution.
Elle abolit les distinctions
Séparant les êtres sans raison.
Ouvre la voie à tous talents
Sans s’encombrer de parchemins.
C’est un alcool enivrant
Que l’égalité des droits.
C’est aussi une promesse
De secourir celui qui choit.
Si l’égalité fait tant peur,
C’est que son regard de lynx
Perce les supercheries
Et voit les hommes tels qu’ils sont.
FRATERNITE !
Elle coule, coule comme le miel,
Nectar de la ruche humaine.
Elle sait embellir nos vies,
Et faire reculer la grisaille,
Du calcul, froid et égoïste.
Dans la devise Républicaine
Elle tient la baguette de l’orchestre.
Comme un peintre inspiré, elle met,
Sur la toile, vive et vermillon.
Elle nous incite à l’humanisme.
Elle est petite fille de 89, fille de quarante –huit
Mais sut renaître en 68.
Elle est crainte par les puissants,
Qui n’ont jamais connu qu’argent,
C’est pourtant une essence rare.
Dans les temps durs, elle se cache,
Mais vient ouvrir la porte
Au Résistant pourchassé. Elle n’hésite pas aujourd’hui
À secourir un «sans papier»
Sa sœur est générosité.
Elle est la valeur suprême,
Qui rend possible le «vivre ensemble»
Et permet même au solitaire
De faire battre un cœur solidaire.
La fraternité reste la vraie conquête de l’humain.
Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi) à Toulouse; France.
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 8:07 AM UTC
Green, yellow, red, stop.
I walked through a busy market in Paris until I hit a stoplight that left me without the knowledge of misfortune or pleasure awaiting me.
Either way, I'm glad I waited
because moments later here I am staring at what I hoped would be; the one.
I remember you were seated on your pastel blue bicycle,
the ones with the basket in the front carrying a baguette
I mean, how french can one get?
You had blonde hair, you were blue eyed
I still remember what you looked like.
You looked exactly like someone I thought I would never be right by
Face to face
You looked back at me and smiled.
It kinda reminded me of that one story by John Green where this dude named Augustus Waters met this girl named Hazel Grace and he falls in love with her in an instant so on and so forth because
This was something similar.
I didn't know you,
But I felt as if we potentially were operating on the same wavelength,
and I loved that.
It's crazy how only three seconds can paint out a situation that
makes it feel like a lifetime of what seemed to be only pure bliss.
Three seconds was all it took.
Three seconds was all it took for the stars that bled through your eyes to align with mine-
a constellation that only happened once in a lifetime
But who you think you are to me was just a girl riding her bicycle.
And I was just a boy pointing his camera at a direction towards someone of both beauty and of worth.
It was almost as though you were just a vision in my dream as she looked comforted
Yet her eyes stood out as if she had just smelled the scent of coffee.
In perfect constrast, her eyes, they glimmered, they shined brighter than all the stars within her.
But both beauty and worth couldn't comprehend to this feeling.
She was unstoppable and she took everything she ever wanted with a smile.
Red, yellow, green, go.
Three seconds turned out to what seemed to be that moment where time and only time stood still.
Three seconds turned out to what seemed to be three lifetimes.
Three seconds was all it took to imagine what my life would be without you by my side.
L’amour fait les plus grandes douceurs et les plus sensibles infortunes de la vie.
Love makes the greatest pleasures and most sensitive misfortunes of life.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 10:14 PM UTC
*If there are words to be heard in this thumping
As the black turns to grey through the lighting,
If dew is drowned and white walls are tainted
As the oldest colours have all faded,
If the morning songs of the birds
Are only in our hearts to be heard,
Then teach, me morning the peace you bring!
If the beady eyed flow stream of pilgrims
If the slippers splinter and splash the water film
And brazen lights splatter the black recipient
With a hissing, oh so inconvenient,
If the keeper’s morning cigarette
And the perfume of the fresh baguette
Enlace as lovers within my nose.
If the bananas seem strangely lit,
Under the glow of white tungsten hilt
And the craving of a lazy sleep
Has laid the newspapers in such a heep.
And if radios blare the sad morning news
I do not look for the blessings of a muse,
I have found in my morning bread run.*
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 10:10 AM UTC
Couchers de Soleil sur la Comtale
ou un vaisseau sur la ville
Il est en Toulouse, le soir
comme un vaste vaisseau fantôme
Jetant sa proue sur le canal
et filant droit sur le cap Saint-Sernin,
c'est la Comtale en son écrin.
Comme une enchanteresse de couleurs,
mêlée d'ocre du soir et d'orange soleil
peignant les voiles de ce vaisseau.
La luminosité en terrasse
en fait un bel observatoire
de la palette des nuages,
des jeux infinis du soleil
et des sourires de la lune
qui scintillent sur Saint Sernin,
font resplendir les grands grues
de l'ancienne Toulouse, réveillée de son sommeil.
Quand le vent d'autan souffle fort,
comme un orchestre laissé seul
sans partition et sans baguette,
«La Comtale» frémit sous le choc
et ce noble vaisseau de pierres
voit ses terrasses dévastées,
par les outils de jardinage
et les plantes taillées menues.
Mais chère et haute nef, «La Comtale»,
tu n’es jamais toi-même que lorsque le soleil luit
et fait rougeoyer les briques ocres,
transforme tes terrasses en jardins étagées
à l’ombre des stores tirés
des plantes aromatiques et des cactées
qui parfument de menthe, de poivre et de miel
nos thés glacés et limonades sirotées avec joie.
Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi), Toulouse
(02 avril 2014)
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
Days are optional. Nights are mandatory
you can eat your fun and spin puns in the doldrums of your fondest plunge
into naked earth. your cackling wheel, spinning geek in the first sun
of a night kingdom. a purged baguette.
a sprig of blunder
where the fumes are nimble
and the heart a lost cause
just because.
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 6:33 AM UTC
I'm going to Paris in a few days,
Definetly going to Quartier Latin and then of course steal the mona Lisa and start a revolution
Let's get the barricade boys
Don't trust the baguette
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 6:42 AM UTC
Oxford one Thursday before Christmas.
Down Ship Street for lunch,
sticking to what we know.
Inside, into warm familiarity,
away from the chirp of bike-wheels,
tuba players and cold latching
onto our cheeks.
A trio of guys, one female at the back,
preppy students sipping coffee,
crumbs scattered like sesame seeds
over white plates and laps.
Smashmouth on the stereo,
a choice between Coke or pink lemonade
(Coke it is),
a flapjack for one-seventy if I wanted.
My stomach growls for grub.
I think of winter drizzled everywhere,
scrawl all this upon a scrap of paper
using my father’s pen.
Then a black-haired girl
with a sincere smile hands over
my baguette, chopped in two
and I think of her until we are finished,
well out the door
with my coat zipped right up.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 2:16 PM UTC
En France, a cause de
leur system métrique , a
Bakers Dozen does not
exist, so, in order to get
around this dilemma, I
had no choice but title the
poem, a bakers cousin or
else it would have been
called Le Boulanger's Dix
which has a ******* sound
to it and the #MeToo lot
are already complaining
about the ****** innuendo
of what some see as a blatant
symbiotic patriarchal profession
that has created both the Baguette
and the Croissant as some form of
visual representation of the phallus
and ****** with yeast being the
common denominator of them both,
therefore by introducing his cousin
and keeping the relationship within
the confines of an incestuous family
affair, the poem in theory should not
need to be censored by the readers,
unless of course you are a Coeliac
in which case I strongly advise that
all of what you have read here is best
erased from your memory immediately.
Jan 12, 2019
Jan 12, 2019 at 12:26 PM UTC
i.
Detained, I am not
Enslaved in chain's;
I've broken those long ago;
Twas I was loosed,
By mine Earl Jane.
Mine Zion
Mine nirvana
From God.
ii.
Abandon her I shan't
She's the aye, in wholesome array;
Filipino by morn', winged one born,
Atop her green mountain view way.
Her baguette flake's falleth from her spanned plumule shadowy shade: whilst I kiss her feet, mine joyous tear's cleaneth her toe's, whilst on mine knee's, she smileth at me, whilst I sayest " I loveth thee more" she argue's back its her most.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedication ( filipino rose)
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 9:36 AM UTC
Here's what I've been saving,
here's just a little taste.
I've wanted to say it,
so here it goes; I like your face.
I don't just mean "your face",
'cause I like the other parts too!
Together, I find them much better,
because together they make you.
And let's face it,
I like you more with eyes and ears and toes.
But what I love, perhaps most of all
is the tip of your stout little nose.
Now don't get me wrong,
I'd love you even with no bells or whistles.
Yet when you look at me with those eyes,
you make my heart race; blood sizzle.
I don't think I've gotten across
quite what I've wanted to say.
But maybe it just wasn't meant to be,
maybe it's for another day.
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
I asked Vanessa
If she had a cure for block.
You know that whisky dipped, **** ****** feeling of despair,
The **** sure, achy ***** tastes like *** Jesus Monday already,
Realization,
You've said every ******* thing you have to say
Twice.
Vanessa said, only pain cures block,
And after the limp life you've led, she said,
You might be incurable.
Perhaps, and she
Stared at me over the black rims of her glasses
Until I felt damp and exchanged,
Perhaps you have inoculated yourself against all forms of creativity,
Simply by being a ******* wimp.
You pride yourself on being a child, she said,
A L'Enfant terrible, a pretense
Someone who would swear in a church,
Tell a woman her cleavage was obvious,
Or pretend to count your change three times
To irritate the bartender.
All a charade,
The artist as infant,
That’s you!
Instead, here she hesitated,
Of the artist as infinite-
Do you get it, she demanded,
Do you understand the distinction at all,
She asked me,
As half a baguette exploded out of her fat mouth.
I didn't and I began to sulk, withdraw
Bite my lip and pick at the scab on my hand.
Pain you fool,
Vanessa moved closer to my face,
Put yourself in real danger
Buy a ******* ticket to Tangiers or New Delhi,
Take only your passport,
No money, no phone, no safety straps, no underwear,
Just go and see what happens to you.
Yes you might die,
Be drugged and have your organs removed,
Be ***** by philistines with aids,
Who will jeer at your poet’s credentials,
And sell your kidneys,
But go.
Go now
I will drive you to the airport and buy your ticket,
Throw yourself into the world,
Powerless,
And dependent on the conscience of strangers,
Here
Vanessa said,
And extended her hand,
Let me squeeze your testicles blue,
It will stimulate your courage
And uproot and cleanse the black mold
Of your depression.
You cannot watch life anymore,
She pleaded with me,
You are useless now and trite,
Know one thing,
You are not blocked
You are dead.
I’m offering you another chance
At everything.
Jump at it.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 9:23 AM UTC