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Nat Lipstadt Jan 2018
based on the essay in the notes below
which was forwarded to me by Liz Balise
<>
all poems and their accompaniment sauces commence with onions,
that start by fouling the air, bringing forth only unrestricted tearings,
but then...

the slow cooking elicits the sugars hid within,
the unpleasant odor, refined into something
minted new sweet and savory.

so too, the poem must simmer, slow cooked,
harmonizing the caramelizing,
even if some ingredients
claim the first born birthright of the eldest first essential,
despite the collective harmonizing.

the ripened color of the blood red tomatoes,
the ruddy cheery sanguinity of
certain words in each poem,
are the coloration of its entirety -
the ones your never forgive for never letting you forget them!

what matters not but how, the daring to substitute the new how,
how you chef see it and color it with the crazy way how
you beckon us over one by one to the big *** for a tasting
accepting critiques and suggestions, a thousand pinches
of your salty sweet essences.

and the recipe is dog stained and pointy corner ear-edged,
cause you cannot exactly write it down, and you bend the corner
for every substitution and variation,
cause every poem
made to taste the how of us,
each one a subtle different.

everyone understands metaphor,
even the society of the reticent ones in the back row,
just say the “trapdoor of depression” and they’ll nod knowingly,
so say to them a poem is a metaphor for you,
and spaghetti sauce is how you see, recreate in words,
how you need to add an ingredient of yourself
to this one,
a word, a phrase, becomes you,
becoming you in it,
in you,
you in it are both poet and poem,

a simmering new and different

————————————————————————-


A Well Written Essay— The Spaghetti Sauce Method

As a teacher and a learner, I have always wanted to see the "nuts and bolts" of everything. Yes, it slows the process down, but the learning is more complete, and a person becomes capable of making endless connections of understanding, branching to other  creative possibilities. Writing like dancing, and all that is worth learning, deserves all of the pieces and steps of the process.
I remember telling my students every year that grammar could indeed be a dry bone, but necessary in the process of good communication. Told them that I would teach writing by the "spaghetti sauce method" (Visualize their perplexed faces here.). "A well-written essay should be like a really good sauce-- smooth, fine textured, with a complete harmony of meat, sweet, tomato, and seasonings-- not one overpowering the others, but all in marvelous union of great flavor and aroma."
I continued, giving the example of my mother's
(God rest 'er) Irish spaghetti sauce" as a contrast. "Mama would throw in onions, peppers (if she had ‘em), hamburger, salt and pepper, fry it all in corn oil, and mix with two cans of plain tomato sauce. This was all okay with me," I went on,“ till I experienced the epiphany of garlic, basil, oregano, pork neck bones and a cup of wine; in the kitchen of an Italian neighbor, who walked me through the process and ingredients of real Italian sauce that was simmered for hours."
I continued to nudge them with the comparison: "Excellent writing is more than talent and passion, otherwise a tirade of curses, knotted ideas, and copied paragraphs of someone else would always do.” "No," I went on, "It is clear thought, captured, slow-cooked in the labor of mind and understanding— and in good time, expressed, in a way that others can comprehend -- with great attention to the cardinal rule: It is not as much WHAT you say-- but HOW you say it."
Through the year I focused on one or two aspects of better writing at a time for each paper. It was an uphill battle, often teaching against the mediocrity of the expectations in the PA State Standards of Assessment. It would add ten hours to my work week to grade and comment on a set of a 115 papers.
Moriah Harrod Aug 2012
A fire started in the baking store on Pudding Lane last night.

I stood across the street and watched the cobblestone break away, the ruddy bricks of kiln-soaked stuff crumbling at my feet. As people came and gathered round, and watched the flames rise up, I could only wonder what the bread was feeling, it’s life coming to a brittle end.

I began to doubt my mental state, for it was only bread. And yet I felt an urgent dread rising. It started at my toes. It rose up through my knees, begging to bend and spread, as if to say, “You can run, run, run. Save the bread.” It crept up through my hips, my stomach, into my arms, and up to my scalp. It was intriguing, this dread. I stood completely still, denying the temptation to ‘help the bread.’ My body wanted to panic, and it was enthralling to feel this control in my denial.

I looked up at the canvas, the canopy of the store. It was fringing and shriveling and blacking at the corners, flames licking like an acid that leaves an ashy residue. The letters of “Abruzzi Bakery” looked wrong here, like an abranchiate fish. I felt a flash of hatred for the letters themselves, the way they were shaped, and if in the possession of a knife I would have been tempted to slash every letter away. It was hate, pure and simple.

As suddenly as it had come, I looked at the letters once more and there was nothing. I felt nothing. The windows were browning at the bottom, caramelizing the glass from the heat. I thought of me, caramelized, like that glass. What if I were see-through? It was an appealing thought.

People were still crowding around, and I wondered where the men were that would save the last of the store. I looked around me and the faces of the people were contemptible, disapproving of the conflagration. I was hurt by how they shunned this phenomenon, this magnified chemical reaction that reflected in my eye and appealed to my senses. I couldn’t associate with their way of thinking, another doubt of my mental state.

I stood here, with a gathering of people, and as I looked around, I slowly began to feel as if they were the conflagration, these people with their scorning minds. They were but a fire in humanity, a fire that did nothing but kept burning and hurting. I felt an odd sense of brotherhood with the fire, and I was ashamed that people had to see it. These people did not deserve to see this act of beauty happening before them, and I wanted them to go away.

A mouse scrambled out the open door. It’s tail was ashen with a few sparks of fire still on its tail, living from the oxygen around it, but slowly fading.

I realized that it was symbolic of what humanity is. Humanity is a fire, glowing bright. But like this mouse’s tail, it had to end, and would slowly rise and fall with the mixture of oxygen it comes in contact with. I realized I wanted no part of this. I wanted to be nothing but whole, a brother of this roaring sensation in front of me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Johnny Cash had also understood, when writing “The Ring of Fire.” Maybe he knew, he also could grasp the concept of fire and its place with humanity, and like I was starting to, wanted nothing to do with it. Him falling into the burning ring of fire was not a tragedy, but an act of righteous martyrdom.

I walked across the street, separating myself from the soon-to-be fading gathering of this sickening humanity around me. I felt the sparks of lit ash hitting my arms and began the denial of running away. The control of my denial to save myself would be hard. But I knew. I was saving myself. From everything in this world that did nothing but look down upon that which had more of a right to be here. Of that which was here before them, and that which would be here after nature’s tolerance of the abuse failed.

I was in the bakery now, in the belly of the beast that was only misunderstood, and could only be my savior now. And I understood all the doubt I’d had about my mental state. It was not impaired in comparison to others, it was heightened. I was the only one who could see what it all really meant.

I sat down in the flames and, as I felt it appropriate, began to sing “The Ring of Fire,” feeling Johnny’s spirit sitting next to me, singing along.
// loosely alludes to the Great London Fire ~ basically a bakery fire on Pudding Lane
Cori Feb 2014
If you’ve only ever smelled fir trees covered with freshly fallen snow-
then you haven’t smelled it.
It’s an acquired smell, for sure.
It comes just in between the whiffs of
mashed potatoes
mashed carrots
mashed peas
mashed turkey
hell, mashed ginger-ale for all I know. . .
Somewhere amongst that microwaved menagerie, masked with the smell of eau de toilette,
it lives, and smells sweeter the longer brown sugar bubbles on top of caramelizing yams.  

If you can’t smell it, maybe you can find it.
Not many can, or do.
It hides in plain sight, though.
A lost and found box with accumulated cobwebs - everything still unclaimed.
A flyer for free puppies that no one ever took because they were “too much responsibility.”
Maybe there aren’t enough seekers in this game of empty rooms and blank guest books.
But keep looking, until bingo prize hand-me-downs after school plays look like Oscars.
You won’t see it until it makes you believe that plastic Mardis Gras beads are Tiffany-blue boxes.

It’s not so much in the nose, or the eyes as it is in the endurance.
Endure the voiceless Glenn Miller until his brass bellows become her voice -
whispering “I love you”  to the effortless rhythm of “Moonlight Serenade.”
And imagine her,
swapping her orthopedics for black heels,
elegantly taking Pop’s hand as he helps her up from her wheelchair,
to join him for just one more dance.
Watch as they become the sepia-colored couple in every anniversary photo.
That black dress.  Those fake pearls.  
The crescendo of the band.
It’s hard to miss when it’s screaming at you.
Ellis Oct 2021
I was told I didn’t need to know the Ingredients
For making a child with a heart of Gold
That they were born holding a Medal
Which said they owned everything and All
Of it was because they had convictional Purpose
The doctor would cry and bring a rose Flour
To thank the mother for Baking
An excellent batch of babies, Soda
Would be poured in champagne glasses, Salt
Sprinkled a top its head to spread like Butter
The flavours of intellect and it also Softened
The hearts of others around; old wounds Granulated
Smelled like caramelizing Sugar
Inside the room, the bodies Packed
Together to peer at the Brown
Strings of hair atop the child, who’s Sugar
-like shrieks of life broke open the Egg
Of love and made it taste like Vanilla
Its tears looked the most Semisweet
A dripping fountain of Chocolate
Fondue, be careful not to Chip
The teeth when it grows, it will grow Coarsely
Then, like jagged pebbles Chopped
With a dull knife; finally, assemble the Nuts
And bolts tight because this will hurt ,if
Not properly done, or simply toss away if the kid wasn’t desired
read the last word of every line
betterdays Aug 2014
and the sun is
warming the long
muscles in my back

and the beer is cold
and ****** on my lips

and the smell of onions
caramelizing  with steaks
on a pop-fizzing bbq
is  tickling my nostrils

and  my soul is unfurling
it's wing...there is a hope
of the joy of spring
in this friday afternoon air
faculty barbeque...in the warm and pleasant last day of the work-week sun
Daisy Chain Nov 2013
Stepping on a sound puddle
Beaten by the wall of mute dark
shooed and cooed by the voices in the sky
The smacking of gentle lips before they sigh
The sound of your life
The doors begin slamming one by one
As you run down the corridor, run
Hands clapging in a dooming chime
the laughter washing through your hair
Stop.
Start to dance.
Lift your fingers and strum.
Strum like you’ve never strummed.
The beat grows beneath your feet
Flowers spreading into a senseless street
Boom Boom.
The voice. The base.
Your lungs filled with heavy sugar
dark sugar.
Caramelizing as you dance.
Move. Move.
Until that skirt lifts, until those toes hurt.
A carriage of snapping fingers
Delivering beat, that once belonged
To the silence.
WJ Thompson Mar 2017
Words etched into the wall (above)
by the augmented fifth
Merely (below) displaced fifth
Blistering drywall
Voweling (in) out the love song
Caramelizing (out) paint
German Shepherd tilts
his (between) her head
Doesn't quite like (around)
The augmented fifth
What an awkward chord.
Onoma Jan 12
the vertigo of dwarves--

seven bites into a snowy

apple.

caramelizing dusk.

a full viewing.

her overslept perfection.

her eyelashes flaking off

tremorous go betweens.

her cheeks, rash & unapplied

blush--what's soup to winter.

or what feigns the circulature  

of a latter stir.
Enola Cabrera May 2016
A sense of pleasure rippled through me as I felt him hug my skin
kissing me softly, caramelizing my pale outer exterior
Even though you are too bright to see  
I could feel you constantly watching me

-EC
To the sun, my day protector
South City Lady Sep 2020
dawn aches behind my eyelids
such a yearning for sleep
unsettled thoughts
wrinkle the mind  
I can not smooth their
inconsistencies or
carelessly tuck them back
within steadfast dreams

they creak down hallways
a long shadow billowing
in moonlight, hair tossed
as waves crashing, releasing
suspending  - I crave

the certainty of silence
this unrest disrupts
the manicured space
where I have painted
tranquility

but I find, if you count
backwards
you can forget sorrow
misplace concerns
gather flesh
to warm
brittle roots
             5,    4,
secrets drift behind
an arched wing

                             3,    2
lightning retreats softly
into dim    heartbeats
caramelizing time
as amber light
fades to  
black
Those night games we play to harness sleep

— The End —