Passing through those glorious doors together

We find home at Bombay Bakers

Your hand in mine

The sugary air hitting us harder than a brick wall

We both feel the grace of familiarity

Our chemistry hotter than the rolls in the oven

The smell of freshly baked croissants gives me the same warm feeling as your smile

Passing Agora we look at each other with the same bright eyes

It'll just be a quick stop but such a savory one as we sit and share a large caramel coffee

I hate the aftertaste but anything with you is such a candied tang in the end

Your cinnamon dusted lips so close to mine

Your taste so sweet couldn't even be compared

Licking each finger after your touch, trying to save each bit of you

It doesn't matter which side of the world we are on or where we end up in the end

As long as there's that corner bakers shop nearby

It'll be home with you

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.

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
     finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
     throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.

Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.

In the ill-lit room singed with ovens’ heat
Swift hands deftly turn wheat ***** sweet
The air exudes a smell of pulpy soft taste
Blended with the odd fragrance of sweat!
Here reigns under the tin shed eternal night
As if by some design is forbidden daylight
Roll out confectionaries crisp and light
To fill the mouths with salivary delight!
Bread, cake, cookie and cherry bun
Kneading them in the heat is no fun
The bakers’ faces glow warm and red
Faster they must go before they rest their head!
The delicious stuff are relished by kids and grownups
They savor the flavor with their hot morning cups
Do they ever pause or give it a thought
How those laboring bodies in the heat rot!

Every night he's out with his torch
shinning it from off his wooden porch
looking for unsightly bugs and slugs
knowing those greedy munching critters

He had put beer cups in the soil
but to no avail
only a few slugs got so drunk
that they fell inside

So this night would be his sweet vengeance
this night will be liberation of his green friends
with salt in a bucket he goes storming Norman
throwing a frenzy of burning salt that melts flesh

He was a very nice chap most of the time
but tonight it was just protect those cabbages
and protect them he did and destroyed
yet forgot the cost to his liberty he claimed so right


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

We, the people of this country, in your eyes are:

babblers, bachelors, bafflers, baiters, barkers,
beakers, beaters, brawlers, blamers, beggars,
bloaters, bloopers, bombers, boozers, blunders,
bruisers, bafflers, bluffers, burglars and burners.

That's why you feel compelled to keep your foot on our heads
keep us down, put us down, push us down
subjugate us, belittle us, berate us.

We, the people of this country, in our eyes are:

butlers, bouncers, bakers, buyers, barbers,
cake-makers, delivery-takers, cocktail-shakers,
taxi drivers, cancer survivors, employers and hirers,
music makers, entertainers, window washers, foster takers,
plasterers, carpenters, scaffolders, sparks and builders,
boxers, carers, coaches, tailors, shoe makers,
designers, illustrators, multi-language facilitators,
dog walkers, dog trainers, bikers and cycle couriers,
doctors and nurses and all the emergency services.

We are the People, the reason you are where you are now
you sometimes forget that we exist as people, somehow
locked in your ivory towers with gold plated showers
and MP expenses and investment banker pretenses
this is not theater, its real life drama, its not just a bluff
its time to stand up
and say enough is enough.

Funny men in tall chef hats
Marching about so wildly
Stone soup and humble pie
Main course and dessert delight

Give me a dose
And that girl two
Vanity, her dream come true
Narcissistic uncaring and cold

A mid-evil blunder
So daring and bold
Spoiled brats
And rotting Brauts

Sugared too sweet
Not telling the truth
The gossip
And all

The Court jester
The village idiot
He sinks to the bottom
She cheers to the top

It's amazing the wonder
The high school scene
The many things
That relate to its sheen

The short stout bakers
Making profit from weakness
Some goods so smooth
Some just the opposite

The geeks and nerds
Hackers and slackers
Jocks with jerseys
And rebels with rock

Serve up course two and three
Let's make it a festival
Just you and me
Vanity and sheen

Were just getting started
This is high school
This mid-evil concert
For four years we live it

A new melody
A new song
It's not the end
But the struggle

Is on.

Genial poets, pink-faced
earnest wits—
you have given the world
some choice morsels,
gobbets of language presented
as one presents T-bone steak
and Cherries Jubilee.
Goodbye, goodbye,
I don’t care
if I never taste your fine food again,
neutral fellows, seers of every side.
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name.


And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread,
blood donors. Your crumbs
choke me, I would not want
a drop of your blood in me, it is pumped
by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never
falter: irresponsive
to nightmare reality.


It is my brothers, my sisters,
whose blood spurts out and stops
forever
because you choose to believe it is not your business.


Goodbye, goodbye,
your poems
shut their little mouths,
your loaves grow moldy,
a gulf has split
the ground between us,
and you won’t wave, you’re looking
another way.
We shan’t meet again—
unless you leap it, leaving
behind you the cherished
worms of your dispassion,
your pallid ironies,
your jovial, murderous,
wry-humored balanced judgment,
leap over, un-
balanced? ... then
how our fanatic tears
would flow and mingle
for joy ...

It may be time to go away
Too many cookies are uneaten
And a few are only nibbled

I baked all night for many days
And used up all my spices
But few customers appeared

I laid them on my very best tray
And priced them as a bargain
Now most of them are growing stale

I think it’s time to close up shop
The other’s cakes were obviously better
Their customers waited in long lines

It will be hard for me to stop
My hands are white with flour
And my apron’s tied so tightly

Still, no farmer wants to plant a crop
That never will be eaten -
Are cookie bakers not the same

Perhaps my wafers were too plain
And lacking decoration
I thought that flavor was enough

But recognition brings me pain
I felt my recipes were special
But everyone had better ones

It seems that I cannot sustain
The dream of being Mrs. Fields
When It comes to writing cookies
               ljm

I've often noticed numerous features
Many of which are on gardeners and bakers and preachers
But I have never even mentioned my own
Many peers of mine point them out to the teachers
To be silent and observe is what I am prone

I find listening and watching much more meticulous
I realise they don't understand how I stay quiet during the day
For they all speak and sound quite ridiculous
I think they may soon learn of what they say
At least I hope, I can never say for sure when they may

Custard Tarts**

A mouthful of sweetness
yellow;
crust;
chewed slowly, savoring
and the mind goes back
along olfactory pathways
etched long ago
back to turbulent times
of teenage years
and custard tarts, with cinnamon sprinkles
your Dad brought home for Saturday lunch
after working,
trying to keep a bankrupt business afloat
plugging the holes of ineptitude
as the ship sank lower week by week.
A sliver was handed out with the coffee
devoured by all at the table
not much else to remember
except the coldness, the distant demeanor
a start contrast to the warmth of the pies
made with love at the bakers
custard tarts, now and then
sweet!

Malcolm Davidson December 18, 2013

Urban Community Living:

Some days I actually noticed how grey it was
All of this space, here around us
As our half-beaten stone trodden 52 bus
Rolls into its unfortunate terminus.
Terminal more like.

The shops have boarded windows,
Bakeries have bullet-proof counters
Staffed by bulky bakers-***-bouncers
A praised underground centre for perilous shopping
Dodge rival factions on various floors
Fighting for stair supremacy
And burly painted girls with latent spent applause

Some colour on the underpass is some relief
Only it warns of impending doom
for someone soon

I rise in her eyes
she submits and
I die in her sighs.

when a nation implodes into a civil war,
it is heresy for other nations to intervene,
i didn’t hear of the french intervention
in the english civil war...
or a german intervention in the french civil war...
****** didn’t invade spain, and no african
nation intervened in the american civil war...
or mongolia invading russia via siberia
to save the tsar...
but i guess the concept of
                          globalisation changed all that,
when western nations forgot that they have
professional armies... while syria
         has a liechtenstein / gibraltar army equivalent...
former postmen, cooks, bakers butchers and lawyers
turned professional “footballers;”
i can draw you a dairy cow in crayons if you like,
oozing blood: if this view is too complex to digest -
they do it with passion...
                your soldiers do it for a paycheque, get it?

Rain and all its forms
Blurred Mountains seeping into the borders
surrounding
A little village
Grey on the horizen
Ocean way way below the village
Down the mule trails
Scraping in coils
Pebble linings
Down to the mediteranean sea
In this village
Cobble streets
Coloured roof tops
Crumbling houses
Empty clotheslines
Except a few wet clothes hanging
Forgotten faded red shirt
Hanging from one season
To the next
Water drips and dances bouncing from stone to stone
Wooden shoes clack quickly
As they rush over the street
A lady
Wearing hand woven clothes
warm fresh flat bread
Wrapped in cloth
And in a basket.
A young boy follows her
His sweater held over his head
Eyes obscurred
He walks as though in a maze
Then they are gone
Empty streets
A round woman, hair ******* with a faded white rag cloth
Empties out steaming hot water
From a copper ***
Soapy steam
In the rain
Alley way
Side door
Not much activity
A girl sits looking out observing
Watching the rain
Smelling the warmth
Rising from the bakery down below
She remebers the hustling market, the colors when in the sun
The shuffling people
In sunglasses
New people
Sun season
Different apearences than the ones she knows
The ones shes used to
The skin foreign to her.

She likes her room
With the elephants in the rug
Little marchers
Within the mandela sequince
She likes the bakers down below
Aunts and uncles
Unsure of who's family
By blood
And who's family
In spirit.
She likes the old man
Who sits with his cane
In the little sitting chair
In front of the bakery
He who treats her to a cookie every now and then
Or slips her a piece of sweet bread
He, who wears an old black cap
And puts on his coat
And hobbles down the little street
She waits for him sometimes
She sits perched outside and looks down the street
From right to left
Until she hears the familiar clatter
The sound of his wooden cane on cobblestones
Each who carry their own divine essence
Or sound to which they bring
A memory of her father comes to mind
How differently he sounds when he walks
Gentle and slow
Heavy and kind
Compared to her mother
soft and light
Swift like a feather
in the wind
Sweet like a berry.
The girl sometimes likes rainy season more
Although she misses the hustle and bustle of market day
In the sun
When the lively noises fill her ears
The wild smells
When the bakery arises before the crack of dawn
And the smell of fresh bread awakes her
Smells of new special treats
Made larger and larger
Just to apeal and to please
The large crowds.
The sounds of bakers
Yelling orders back and forth
Clanging pots
A madness of creation.
Grand cakes
Thousands of tarts
Each one delicatly made with care.

When the people make extravagant delicacies
When goats are roasted
And fresh tomatoes
Made into scrumptious sauces
With fresh basil.
Olives pickled and handed out on toothpicks
By yelling merchants
The best olives in the region shouts one
Across the street, the bestsest shouts another.
Most
spectacular
Imaginative
Freshest
Most this
Or that
Yummiest
Tastiest
Wildest
Amzingest
Greatest.
In her mind the images play
Like moving dolls

In full vibrancy.

For a second she forgets
Her placement
She has returnes back to the heat
And the memories
Of men in white undershirts
Smoking outside
Playing cards and waiting for the sun to dry
the rest of their clothes
The bantering ladies
From window to window.
She gets lost,
until the sound of a door loudly shutting in the streets awakes her
Jumping up
Looking out the window
Still silence
Nothing in sight.

Drizzles of rain
The sound it makes
When it slides down the roofs
She misses the heat
Of the bustling summer day
But in secret
she likes the rain
The silence and comfort it brings.
She likes the rain and the lonliness.
The solitude.
the sounds of her parents sleeping
Yawning.
a distant kettle whistling,
A neighbors.
The desolatation.
Patters of rain.
She likes to have both seasons
One season to live
And the
other to dream.

The sun is a glaring Mom. She has
Nine toddlers in pull-ups robbing a liquor store
They scream like goblins coated
slippery in A+D,
(but the money tastes like sand)
buttery streams of light in the air that smells
like chewed fireworks.

Baby Blue silence. Then

“Langston McCaw! LA County Sheriff!”
the Sheriff is dead McCaw is an accountant over at Sherman and-
But he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Sun setting sets the air habanero
“Look about it” the babies cry
Those chubby voices of rage.
Liquor quivering milky and hot
I ripped the roof and reached-
J-Dog has snatched another thief
And he will take the lil’ ***** to the
holding cell that thinks
Where he will be questioned by
ten petite police

These babies won’t bite the bakers back again!

“Si tu vois ma mere”
broken Bombay bottle sings in despair as
Giant mother tomato sun fell,
Madness doesn’t cease it goes around.

Shop fronts, curbs and pavements.
Bin men wear hearts on their sleeve.
Coffee shops, bakers and jewellers.
A homeless man searching reprieve.

Adverts and billboards shine bright.
The cleaners have swept the streets bare.
Commuters and tourists combined.
This city called London we share.

Marching to a steady beat
Marching to a steady beat

The pavement are veins
People the blood
The city the heart

Pumping the beat
Pumping the beat

Back bathing by Bambi's Bath
Biking Below Big Bridges and Britches
Banners believe bass bands become bad
But besides Beans Bumping by bricks bring bags back
Buffering bemused banned bakers
bring bad buns
brake bonds building back.

a quarter cup of friendship
yields half a cup of smiles
a bakers’ dozen leaves you set for life
just a dash of experience
mixed with your own style
leaves this recipe with no wrong, and no right

Airwaves awash in the new gospel barrage:
calling forth the neighbourhood hack,
Abe Lincoln toon in towering hat,  
the corporation is coming -
will you not
collaborate my friend?

Everything good that you ever dreamed of is here:
Marbonite floored flats with self-terraced roofs;
The swankiest of cars, in imported hues;
Your arm candy drools,
now, brands, bigger brands!

All in your grasp, now, in community gates
shut safe as society decays.

Skies spitting frogs? Pestilences amass?
Listen to the Gospel according to Bane:
in the desert, smell octane. Hallelujah,
everything we make, from watches
to headscarves - your underwear is cheaper
sourced from the next so-lala-land.

Forget your sources tiny of incomes varying:
Bakers, cobblers, tinkerers, we also have
a uniform for you. Oh you rustic
tradition-bound bandy bumpkins!
Abandon your alleyways, and
welcome to the ghettos...where

What you eat, to where to retreat:
we cure everything from heartache to panache.

Wash away your sins in wonder medicines;
Waters can part, yes, see how the Pharoah
is disarmed; Big city dreams, dream
global manna beams. All that is needed for
salvation, is a little bit of classification. Are you
left-wing or right? Center-left or center-right?

The powerdrill tearing down edifices
resonating through noon. A crane arm's shadow
hovering high by the moon. Tablets from skies
now proclaim the new gospel for the land,
the airwaves are awash
of the miracle of Witwatersrand.

The corporation is coming, to a store near you:
Amen! Will you not, then, collaborate, my friend?

There'd only plundering be;
If all of us were wolves,
No sheep could flee....

Oh, the pirate's life for thee.
And the pirate's life for me,
And the world were all in flames,
And the world were all in flames.

If everyone were pirates,
Why, villains all we'd be,
And every deck-born swab
Would glower at you and me

With our laces and our kerchiefs,
And our killer pirate wigs
As we stormed across the continents and seas;
As we stormed across the continents and seas.

And good men, none, would live their lives,
With the gentling help of their good wives;
And children, all, would yell and terrorize,
Chasing down the nursemaid with the kitchen knives.

If everyone were pirates,
No farmers, and no fishers on the beach,
No bakers, and no soldiers continental,
No doctors, and no teachers left to teach,
No preachers and no sermons for to preach,
But only pirates coming up the streets...
But only pirates coming up the streets.

A long time after bedtime
When it's very late
When even dogs dream
And there's deep sleep
Breathing through the house

When the doors are locked
And the curtains drawn
And the shops are dark
And the last train's gone
And there's no more traffic in the street
Because everyone's asleep
Then....

The window cleaner comes
To the main shop fronts
And polishes the glass
In the street-lit dark

And a big truck rumbles past
On it's way to the dump
Loaded with the last
Of the day's trash

On the twentieth floor
Of the office tower
There's a lighted window
And high up there
Another night cleaner's
Vacuuming the floor
Working nights on her own
While her children sleep at home

And down in the dome of the observatory
The astronomer who's waited all day for the dark
Is watching the good black sky at last
For stars and moons
And spikes of light
Through her telescope
In the middle of the night
While everybody sleeps

At the bakery
The bakers in their floury clothes
Mix dough in machines
For tomorrow's loaves of bread

And out by the gate
Rows of parked vans sit
For their drivers to come
And take newly baked
Bread to the shops
For the time when the
Bread eaters wake

Across the town at the hospital
Where the nurses watch in the dim-lit wards
Someone very old shuts their eyes
And dies
Breathes their very last breath
On their very last night

Yet not very far away on another floor
After months of waiting
A new baby's born
And the mother and father
Hold the baby and smile
And the baby looks up
And the world's just begun
But still, everybody sleeps

Now through the silent station
Past the empty shops
And the office towers
Past the sleeping streets
And the hospital
A train with no windows
Goes rattling by

And inside the train the sorters sift
Urgent letters and packets on the late night shift
So tomorrow's mail will arrive in time
At the towns and villages down the line

And the mother
With the wakeful child in her arms
Walking up and down
And up and down
And up and down
The room
Hears the train as it passes by
And the cats in the yard
And the night owl's flight
And hums hushabye hushabye
We should sleep now
You and I
It's late and time to close your eyes

It's the middle of the night.

Vegans are from Venus
Meat eaters are from Mars,
Vegetarians sit around the
breakfast nook light years
from Polaris, knee deep
in far away stars.
All the bread eaters are
closet bakers in disguise.
Those who lunch out
of dumpsters
spend their days
pulling the wings off of flies..
Nobody knows the
troubles they have seen,
and the apathy of the
middle class, well that
is nothing short of obscene.
The protein shake pumpers
sneer at  old time
Bible thumpers.
While the yoga
young collectibles
leave a good portion
of the day largely unsung,
knowing full well they
have nothing worthy
to kiss off the tip
of their tongue.

I love the smell of my flesh in the morning
So soothing, like the ghost of the woman you're mourning
Conforming to a bitterness, you swore to me
That you wouldn't do what you did, but what's more to me
Is that your stain rests upon every thing that I enjoy
My heart is a consultant, don't insult it by calling it unemployed.
I put too much time into your eyes on my mind, in my rhyme
Undermined, badly timed, so let's get to other subject lines

Starlight baking cloudy, shaking
Hourglass breaking, howling naked
On a street corner, "Happy Birthday!" (belated)
Just say it. If it's in a reactor, it's decaying
A single rooftop smothered by snowflakes, earthquakes
Heartbreaks, salt shakers, risk-takers, green bakers
Understudy, crush me honey, lose my number, don't go under
Keep me waiting and debating, my hand shaking, the phone breaking

My face is a reflection of the sunlight's rays
Keeping a constant rumbling from underground at bay
And everyone complains that they're smothered in their own way
But when I rationalize the rainbows, their records won't play
I simply need the orchards to escape this lonely torture
A place to sit and paint in front of a tree and make a fortune
Soothing ears to rest and putting minds at ease
My music, a viral infection, a depressive disease

Constantly starving myself of the rain
I bring the trees to their roots and stimulate the brain
With a conflagration of color, instantly insane
Yet civilized, melody harmonized, urbane
The strings will vibrate and body rejuvenate
Conceptual mind-**** a rising heart-rate
The starlight glowing outwards, the falling of the towers
To signify to flip to side B in a mere matter of hours

I miss you like maps miss fingers,
Like mikes miss singers,
Like hells bells miss ringers,
Like bringers miss takers,
Like ******* miss fakers,
Like cakes miss bakers,
Like lakes miss boats,
Like bad swimmers miss floats,
Like politicians miss votes,
Like doting parents miss school plays,
Like nymphomaniacs miss lays,
Like hypochondriacs miss prescriptions,
Like ****** misses addictions,
Like carpets miss friction,
Like Billy Bunter misses midnight feasts,
Like the grim reaper misses grief,
Like Henry misses the good fellas,
Like sand sculptures miss umbrellas,
Like Rubix cube devotees miss puzzles,
Like rabid dogs miss muzzles,
Like Van Gough missed his brushes,
Like speed freaks miss rushes,
Like pens miss paper,
Like the Mona Lisa missed Pater,
Like the canvas misses the creator,
Like  the thirsty miss water,
Like the hungry miss food,
Like ***** miss the lewd,
Like the mind misses mood,
Like the tides miss the moon,
Like the sane miss the loons,
Like the dark misses the light,
Like the brave miss the fright,
Like the kite misses the wind.
I miss everything.