"cornbread" poems
Born in these hills, taken away
when I was three.
Son of a coal miner who took
my mother, my brother, and me.
Drove west to the ocean, Pacific.
The kids there called me "hillbilly" and "hick."
Said I talked funny. Punched me, kicked me,
generally tried their best to make sure
I knew I didn’t belong there.
And I did not.
Eventually, though,
I learned to speak like them,
dress like them, act as if I was not
from Kentucky, my daddy
was not Appalachian, that
these mountains had no part of me.
My only recourse was
after the pledge of allegiance…
I never sang the “Oregon” song.
I sang, "Kentucky."
But, my father, he wouldn’t change.
He was proud of his heritage.
He played banjo; he played mandolin;
he went fishing, a lot.
Grew the best garden in the county,
ate soup beans and cornbread.
He did not give a hang for their Yankee ways.
I hated him. I hated my father.
until I returned to these hills.
Now I see them,
I see him,
in me.
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 6:53 AM UTC
Go out to the tarmac shove a pig into dirt
Listen to the squeal make sure it hurt
Hogtie'em smack'em on the *** into the van
collect'em off the street and can them in the tan
Ford Transit then we off to the chop shop
The ****** butchers gonna cut some cop
Drag them up feet first arms tied to the side
Hang em up to dry over a reservoir for the gore
Cut the cartery artery while they cry no more
Whats it all for, whats it all for, a long pig cookout
A hairless goat bled out now its time to get guts out
Bleed slows to a drip time to take a head simply twist
Off it comes like pop easy as a ******* croptop
Get your blade nice and sharpish cuz next on the list
Is skinning a cop shave off fuzz into the slop
Then drag a knife from the plexus to the ****
Tie off the **** and yank the excess its painless
**** up and you can try again pick another off the herd
Cut up again and again plenty of pork to slaughter
Almost ready for the grill party just gotta get meat ready
Detach arms, halve and quarter, keep your hands steady
Time to get out the coriander and chili powder
Hammer with a tenderizer on the counter
Cuts of steaks without any guilt, all free range
As I bite into a roast I make a toast to my rage
That made this deranged cookout, pig liver on toast
With some grits and cornbread as the feds approach
Hundred cops'll will roll on the grillmaster
Hundred shots out swiss cheesed by the ********
Read in the paper a monster cop killer
Killed for fighting the terror with terror
Jun 24, 2020
Jun 24, 2020 at 11:12 PM UTC
Ko Ko to Go Go
a prelude to a kiss
dance with Chubby Checker
lift a slo gin fizz
Head bobs to Be Bop
flip the B Side now
mellowtune in monotone
two ears for stereo wow!
Wonderment of Duke and Miles
swinging kool birthin boplicity
urban crush the hipsters rush
jazz joints cross the city
Firery sax emote a clash
strain ears of credulity
Lester leaps creative heat
nips harden on my *******
Max taps exotic wax
Django's quick pickin
finger snaps flip my lid
lips deliciously sippin
Eurozone a Zen zone
a blue infinitive smokin
big peeps dig don pink wigs
fat spliffs hot token
My new suede shoes
walks west end blues
Pop's cornet got me tippin
his open blast first to last
I like cornbread, barbecue
and fine home jazz cookin
jbm
Oakland
3/12/10
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 6:41 PM UTC
Such solidarity we created
On the hilltop with the cows
Discussing sassafras,
Our Chakras,
Summer-berry wine.
Per aspera ad astra
But without inhaling tar
We have come.
The cornbread with anise and wheat berries
Cruncy and sweet
Slathered with strawberry jam
Was such a luxurious meal
For us two tired wanderers.
We're left over from the '60s
Living in the past but in the moment
Listening to Mama Tried (well, she did!)
And crying over Wharf Rat
We model turtles, Celtic knots, a moose
Dream of yesterday and tomorrow
Say what we mean
Take a misguided turn driving home
And our minds meander to slumber and internal illusions.
Nov 21, 2010
Nov 21, 2010 at 3:25 PM UTC
Evenings like these
black as a keyhole
crossing a shadow cast
on the side of the road
where the ground sleeps
dreaming of smooth stones
and nights without love
earning a dangerous living
like a breath under water
choked on the mystery
of cornbread
and a farmer's daughter
I wake up thirsty
hungry and alone.
Aug 24, 2016
Aug 24, 2016 at 9:01 PM UTC
a holiday feast
turkey and mashed potatoes
dressing and gravy
creamed corn, cranberries, cornbread
greens and sweet potato pie
she watched her children
all bright eyed and excited
enjoying their meal
as they left the lot she thought
“Some day...we’ll have it at home.”
Del Maximo
© December 8, 2009
Jan 23, 2010
Jan 23, 2010 at 2:24 PM UTC
yellow basil leaves and obscene art meet the open eyes,
science equations make for bruised paper and
bicycle shadows cream wall,
students make good start.
sitting as a stranger
tap tap
cook makes cornbread
and light
conversation
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 11:44 PM UTC
Mustard greens and butter beans and sweet cornbread all around,
And don't forget the crookneck squash, fried a deep and golden brown.
Mounds and mounds of butter, on the corn and on separate plates,
And Jesus’ blessings, our bodies to his service, before we satiates.
Buttermilk biscuits, pull-apart-monkey-rolls and corn muffins too,
And braided bread baked tenderly by Grandmother, just for you.
Country Ham and red-eye, fried chicken and sawmill gravy,
Ready to entice with all things sav’ry.
Sweet Vidalia onions sautéed in bacon fat,
‘Cause Big Daddy always knows, just where it’s at.
We gather together, hand in hand, pressed cheek to cheek in glee,
Our hearts knitted in happiness, we are family!
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 11:07 AM UTC
Standing here looking
Into the blue sky
Reminiscing about my childhood years
Teardrops on my cheeks
I would trade everything
To live it once more
I was the son of a mother
Who was bellow the poverty line
Father was a rolling stone
was nowhere to be found
But
The strangest thing is
I don’t remember being poor
I didn’t know a beans and cornbread
dinner was because we didn’t have money
And that my mom roasted peanuts
in the oven and cinnamon toast
was because we couldn’t afford
more expensive options
I only knew that they were delicious
and that my mom provided
and
was diligent with what she brought home
I remember my mom worked so hard to make things special
She made our birthday cakes and the Christmas
she pinched every penny to buy our toys and clothes
She would bring comfort where
there is hurt and unforeseen pain
She is what others view
as what’s right in this world
She is a breath of fresh air
Being poor didn’t stopped us from enjoying our-youths
Because love kept us
and gratitude
Turned little
into everything
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 5:33 AM UTC
We took everything off the shelf
opened each can to look inside our self
diced the onion until we had tears in our eyes
skinned the potato until the rough skin subsides
chopped the carrot so only sweetness remained;
rotten lost, flavor gained
turned the knobs to the highest setting
combined our ingredients to avoid forgetting
heated well and tried for taste
we added spices until the right ones were placed
you said you wanted a cinnamon girl
we grabbed it from the lazy Susan and gave it a whirl
it was just what we needed but we were too blind to see
I burned my tongue when you were feeding me
it still needed work but we never lost patience
we just kept trying; most things require maintenance
the finished product was reached after a while
you poured in cheese as I flashed a cornbread smile
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 11:20 AM UTC
Hudson, Hicks, Vasquez,
Android crew on board. Ripley -
Didn't like cornbread.
Last survivor, Newt.
Evacuation cancelled.
You're just a grunt.
'Yeah, Bishop should go'
Sulaco dropship inbound,
Huggers roam freely.
One final rescue,
Push through the ******* airlock.
Escape. Fade to black.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 8:33 AM UTC
Biscuit and sorghum syrup happy faces with Georgia peach butter and blackberry muffins , childhood favorites that tickle the palette !
For a bag of Fall persimmons , a handful of roasted pecans I would gladly cross the Alcovy River naked as a jaybird !
Rutabagas , turnips and cracklin cornbread would be my staple of choice if marooned on an island , a Frosty Root beer and mothers egg custard !
Peach ice cream and scuppernong jelly , fig preserves and tomato gravy !
Columbus grits and Claxton fruitcake , Vidalia onion rings , Elijay apples !
In my next life I relish the very thought of becoming a Cardinal , turned loose in a muscadine arbor ! The most heart stopping , meanest scarecrow ever made would be no match for a wise old crow in a watermelon patch ! Mockingbird busy in a old plum tree , a honeybee in a clover field as far as the eye can see !
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 12:29 PM UTC
eat your dinner
and do it fast
these cornbread muffins
will never last
the gravy's boiling
and the chickens done
we'll eat some pie
'fore the day is done
apple, blueberry
and brown sugar peach
prize winning fruit
within your reach
now sit up straight
let's say the grace
we always do
at mawmaws place
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 2:06 AM UTC
In the Deep South
There is always a woman
In an apron calling out to her kids
Warning them to hurry in
Or the corn bread might get cold
The kids couldn’t care either way
And at their age
Food doesn’t taste as good as
The marshes feel around their ankles
They’re just young enough to be nourished
Off of adventure alone
With sticks in hand
Grazing the tops of half-way grown
Up to their heads wheat
In the Deep South the outside
Is still the Wild West
Where you can walk a few blocks
From your front yard
To deserted boulevards
You can’t but a greeting card
From.
And among all the untamed
Nature and desolate fields and lakes
There is so much space
For kids to create
In the Deep South
Kids see broken down Chevys
As breeched kingdoms
Open fields as battle grounds
Littered with rocks that look like grenades
Every vacant marsh a ****** planet
Where you use overall clasps
As radios to your fellow astronauts.
Why would anyone be in a rush
To come home
To something so real
As Mama’s cornbread.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
Eleven gutted stockings on the floor by the fireplace,
(Mine, yours, my 4, your 4, and the boyfriend)
Scraps of wrapping paper and bows.
Left over roast beef, cornbread, rolls, cupcakes and pie.
(Is the pie "left over" if we didn't even slice it?)
Piles of loved toys soon to be played with.
What a wonderful Christmas it was, the best I have ever had...
What a gift you are to me.
Dec 26, 2010
Dec 26, 2010 at 8:54 AM UTC
they get to eat cornbread together
we don't
I think you can understand why I'm upset about this
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 10:49 AM UTC
To be in the top of that familiar old tree , throwing apples down for my friends to eat ! Gathering her yield for Dad's fried pies , ammo of choice for crabapple fights ! Lip smacking best jelly you've ever eaten , warm milk with applesauce when we couldn't get to sleep ...A quick snack while mowing the yard , cornbread , sweet tea and apple butter !
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 10:04 PM UTC
When my body is broiled with the crispening macabre glean of anxiety; I imagine myself to be a buoying loaf of cornbread in a torrent sea of acid.
my custard colored crust being licked away by the ravenous maw of the current, this is no terrain for a loaf of cornbread in the first place.
Ludicrous.
Perhaps if I joined the sun swept crystal island of idealism, I could be drenched in honey and bound frivolously in nectarous orchard fields.
But then, even here, I suppose a Raven may spot me and adorned with a vulturous sneer gobble me up in my blissful state there.
So where shall my pappy crumbling loaf of an existence reside?
In the trenches of unbridled realization, lapping me up in a despair riddled prison?
Or the land of beatitude and glee unfettered from the brutalizing truths of reality...
Perhaps there's some bridging ground between these two polar opposites...
but how should I know?
I'm merely a cornbread I can't declare cognizance.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 11:09 PM UTC
I just want to be
a Duke of a Universe
is this too much to ask?
I could use
The Black Hole as a pool pocket
and the planets as pool-balls
and declare you
Vice Duke inspecting graffiti
on planet restroom walls,
and you report to me
those words of wisdom
of Plato, Nietzsche, Kilroy and cornbread...
I just want to watch
comets streek across
the heavens
and watch tiny pulsars blink minute rotations,
and newly created stars explode
and belch their heavenly gases
And see masses and masses
of nebulae
stretching outward
like blowy-toy-pinwheels
And I'll take the " Big Dipped"
and dip it in the " Milky Way"
while playing marbles
with tiny asteroids
And use the heavens as my
painter's canvas
and splash on newly Constellations
And use the many Suns
to warm my chilly hands,
The return from farthermost
planets of Sunless Lands
Oh my BOSS!!
I'm getting too serious
as you can easily see
And why worry?
Because I'm already
a Duke of a Universe,
The talk of the playground campus
The talk among every prominent
Neo-Freudian and Neo-Skinnerian
The talk about my wisdom writings
found near almost flushing toilet
at "QUACKSVILLE UNIVERSAL UNIVERSITY"
Here come the med cart
Here come the med cart
That's all folks
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
I sit at a two-top by myself
by the bar. I draw on the back
of a bill with a cheap pen I found
clicked in a foam cup upstairs.
I draw flat cars, flat poles,
flat humans. I give them swirl
hair and no fists.
They are all alike.
The bartender comes over and tells
me that the bar is closed. I hold
my left hand up to him and draw
the sky. I fill it with carbon pink stars
and coffee nebulae. Saturn's rings
are made of cornbread crumbs.
I blow a straw paper comet across the galaxy.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
*Spread over warm shortbread ,
a drizzle with molasses and cornbread
On a fresh baked apple , a dabble on a **** ,
a spoonful over your corn on the cob
Hoecakes , pancakes , johnnycakes and
hushpuppies
A crawfish boil , a 'smidge in the stew , *** liquor , fresh hominy in the fridge ,
drop biscuits , catfish breading and Columbus
grits
Grandmother's frosting with a -
Mason Jar
The Old Red Rooster sleeps in PawPaw's car
Barn Owl hoot 'n holler
Two York's in the afternoon wallow
Blackberry muffins on the rack
An afternoon stitch on Uncle Joe's back
Three legged pup in a red clay ditch
Mother whipping okra with a hickory switch* .....
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 8:55 PM UTC
She had Southern attributes,
making cornbread was one of them,
O how she loved them
peppermint sticks!
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 5:49 PM UTC
Tides move in swiftly
when the moon has to let us know
how powerful she is
and her phosphercsecent glow
Howling songs in the distance
like southern cicadas do
asking her to forgive us
holding hands next to you
I was born down south
I was raised by the heat
Cornbread in my mouth
I crave a country beat
When I go to the river
And the levy breaks
Don’t blame me
for all the mess we create
Southern cicadas
you sing lullabies
Like Mother Nature
You overwhelm the skies
But in the morning
And three cups of coffee
The only rhythm is my heart beating trepidatiously
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 12:08 AM UTC