"salami" poems
I am from VapoRub,
From Goya
And morisoñando.
I am from the traffic
And loud horns,
From the Caribbean heat,
And the city lights,
From the buildings
And the towers.
I am from the palm trees
And the coconut trees,
Dancing bachata
And merengue
In the beach,
From yaniqueque
Y plátano,
From tostones
And fish.
I am from Sunday gatherings
And loud family members,
From Jose, Maria, and Primos,
And the hardworking
Payamps clan.
I am from the
Madera’s baseball team,
From Canó, Sosa, y Ortiz,
From the long summer rides
To ***** Cana
And Samana’s beach.
From “work hard
Cause life is not easy”
And “family before friends.”
From Christianity
And Saturday morning sermons,
From God is good
And He brings joy.
I am from Santo Domingo
And Monción,
From Santiago
And Spanish ancestors,
From mangú con salami,
From rice and beans.
From the grandpa
Who owns the village
Surrounded by
Chickens, cows, and bulls,
From the business owner
And the well known uncles
In my hometown.
I am from the only flag
With a bible.
From the red, blue
And white.
From the most beautiful
Island in the Caribbean,
From Quisqueya y
Libertad.
I am from the
Dominican Republic,
The country that holds
The people I love and
Miss the most.
I am from the
Little Paris box
I keep next to my bed,
Filled with precious
Gifts and letters
That make me feel
A little closer
To them.
Aug 18, 2017
Aug 18, 2017 at 11:54 AM UTC
harambe salami
king of the apes
with some credible japes
oh how i miss your sweet smile
you could slam dunk a crocodile
but there was nothing they could do
to stop you from turning that kid into poo
so they shot you through the heart
and you're to blame
you give love
a bad name
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. Intricate nubs,
my toes. No longer bound.
And what's more, see toenails and
all ten stages, root by root.
All spirited and wild, this little
piggy went to market and this little piggy
stayed. Long brown legs and long brown toes.
Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you.
There is no one else but us
in this house on the land spit.
The sea wears a bell in its navel.
And I'm your barefoot ***** for a
whole week. Do you care for salami?
No. You'd rather not have a scotch?
No. You don't really drink. You do
drink me. The gulls **** fish,
crying out like three-year-olds.
The surf's a narcotic, calling out,
I am, I am, I am
all night long. Barefoot,
I drum up and down your back.
In the morning I run from door to door
of the cabin playing chase me.
Now you grab me by the ankles.
Now you work your way up the legs
and come to pierce me at my hunger mark
13.4k
this table in the
shade
these commune hippies
in the river
I wrote a poem
in my sleep
I looked at the mountains
and thought
rain
staccato
metronome
irrigation
and caps
melting
but enough of this
nature
let’s go back
to the concrete
mouth
where we walk
through the city
full of cake
bloated like
balloons
but rolling
because
cake doesn’t make
you float
no
cake only makes you
fat
the conversation turns
to the stench
there’s something dying
in the air
we leave
and roll joints
spot magnums
on tree branches
and think
only monkeys ****
in trees
and we would never
want to see
monkey ***
and ******
no
we’d never try it
and the homeless man next to us
puts his spoon
away
but god
why do we sleep
when we just wake up?
why do we sleep
to dream
such ********
things
where celebrities
feed us salami in
back alleyways
and we see our mother
pooping on
world maps?
time rips of
lyrical grass
conductive smile
soap bubbles
these beautiful
dreamtime mornings
spent thinking of you
in playhouse mountains
like a child
you smile
like a friend
I offer you my hand
and we walk
to the white
together
bill withers is there
he is singing
in his yellow
turtleneck
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 11:44 AM UTC
it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse
a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...
it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
****** ****** robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
*** except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
Night falls over Soho and, gazing into some cheap tart's eyes
Over a candelit-chequered-food-stained tablecloth,
Beneath my belt an immense ******** lurks leakily,
The seams of my ****** soaked with bursting lust,
My groin twitching in desire for her wanton arse-flesh.
Streetlight shining through threadbare curtains
Glinting sexily over my hairy pounding buttocks;
My screamed roars of pleasure echoing
In the deepest depths of her tenth-rate mind;
Her poor brain collapsing in mighty mid-climax.
Morning reveals a classy scene to chambermaid's gawp:
Spread-legged cold-as-chilled-salami ****
Puny brainbox imploded like mashed bananas
By staggering rivulets of overpowering *******
Like a duck's entrails in an unwashed sink.
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 1:29 PM UTC
My grandmother likes salami, God, and bougainvilleas
I like to think she likes tenuous pink things-
but then there’s the salami.
One day she taught her daughters to string neck-
laces from bougainvillea petals
like-ponies-in-a-junkyard
I think I chewed too much bubblegum in mass
because I picture God pink
an ethereal globe of a poppable pale pink.
And for some reason, I like to think Brother
Charles saw that too
I bet my lungs are somewhat pink:
more pink than my berry red blood
but less pink, sweet and/or hairy
than a cotton candy poodle.
I forget if they were strawberries or rasp-
berries too
There are things that are pink
but then there are things that are pink
and shadowless.
Like subterranean lungs,
God, the future, and
the smell of flamingos in the dark
The future is still pink and
somewhat fruity
like a lukewarm strawberry milkshake blushing,
or was it maybe just the taste
of my pepto-bismol stained lips.
One of those ponies was my mom
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC
Miami melts in its own heat.
It is, as Robert Frost writes,
"Riding on its own melting."
The grubby politicians
no one votes for
package the
melted, gelatinous
reality-space in
salami tubes.
(America, this is where your
“mystery meat” originates.)
And like Frost’s poetry,
this palm tree city
is a modern achievement,
gross in the undertaking.
It is a lead coffin, kept afloat
on the Atlantic Coast by
feat of the imagination alone.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
as if pulling (on the tab)
prevents the continued closure
of the lunch box
oxen milling brunch
as it unfolds sinewed pasture
green purloining sunlight
oxen munching salami on Thursday morning
mourning the luncheon of Sunday
black black blackberries lugubrious
lubricate brioche freshness
pile of white pile of brown pile of pylons
pile (on the tab)
shots are on me
shots fired no casualties
oxen bagged lunches aren't as fun as pulling punches
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 5:06 PM UTC
a loop of spume immune to fumes of eastern tombs
a burnin'; a mad flash of candied wrath
and junebug randy newman;
what rumbles jest in vestments yet
to loom a knit or pearl two... a ****** crest
of ***** wrecks and rubber necks
to view you...
a nop of lopsy,
fever pitched in thicket rich begonia;
and roman roads
too golden
kicks
from hydro
in
your hedge
row.
a droop of noon in cool remove
from gypsum dim sum laude.
a drowning witch on boney creeks
of needles and salami.
untongued. a pool of fringe
rhymes with orange,
yes a door-hinge,
off it's moorings...
off it's Meds
death beds
for trampolines
in petrified forests...
a nop of lopsy, frogging Gatsby,
greatly famished to the Nines;
an olden toll of wish fits
then nothing
comes.
and that's
Life.
Oct 15, 2012
Oct 15, 2012 at 2:11 PM UTC
drunk woodland children, we
ask so many questions, we
firefly skin. the picnic table beneath
our lamps, our ouija board, our girlfriends
next to us warm and laughing.
stories:
we tell stories to scare eachother
before descending into our tents
on the outer darks.
sweet night nothings.
& everythings.
i’m consumed by dreams of you;
somehow running;
somehow ******* my way out of my own inevitable
death.
a lady bug wing half-yanked and humming.
wind scorpion.
mosquito
in the early morning buzz, and i roll over
to see your puffy little sleeping face ::: sunlight there.
limp beyond the tent and zipper.
we eat mayo sharp cheddar salami wheat sammies
& take acid.
everyone one else goes on a group nature-hike,
but i stay behind
hallucinating of my dead mother in those sequined clothes she used to wear.
::: we play scrabble and talk,
until she leaves.
like love.
like guitar strummed chords and many hydrations later –
my tribe returns,
with fish.
the girl i love.
you/she roll joints in your lap,
in my lap,
in a chair and i mirage
the faces of everyone through glass &
slosh; through campfire
& lemonade.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 4:22 AM UTC
Every day the people do it
We can always see straight through it
Every day they ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’
‘Where are we going’ and ‘how far?’
Walking right through our arcade
Playing out the same charade
Are they coming in to buy?
Or look at every price and sigh?
‘Candlestick sir, antique broach?’
‘Sorry must get to the coach’
Occasionally while one man browses
They will look at the price of houses
But we know that they’ll never buy
Because the prices are too high
‘Salami, cheeses, tongue in jelly?’
But they just walk past the deli
From their course they never budge
Unless of course they want some fudge
‘Perhaps a painting or knick knack
A china tea *** letter rack?’
The gallery’s packed full of art
But from their cash they still won’t part
The café almost tempts them in
The smell of bacon tends to win
But then they look upon the clock
And wallets full still, off they flock
In short this daily stream of life
That travels through our little fief
Just amounts to so much teasing
Rather than shop keeper pleasing
There is a reason none the less
For their single-mindedness
Despite how varied our approach
We cannot hope to beat the coach
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:05 AM UTC
Night fell on Montmartre and, gazing into my love's eyes
Over a candelit chequered tablecloth,
Beneath my belt lurked rancid lust,
The seams of my ******* oozing desire,
My groin drenched in desire for his wanton arse-flesh.
Streetlight shone through threadbare curtains
Harnessing proudly over my twitching buttocks;
My screamed climaxes echoing
In deepest recesses of Parisian dawnings.
My clear goal: swallow his salty comings.
Morning exposes a sordid scene to chambermaid's gawp:
Spreadeagled cold-as-chilled-salami bozo,
Puny synapses crushed like mashed strawberries
Blasted smithereens of overpowering *******
Like chicken's entrails in an unwashed sink.
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
Every sandwich that
is born by my hands
feeds hunger
makes me wonder
Why pastrami, and not salami?
Why extra mustard but no O/V?
I listen to the stories the sandwiches
tell me.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 6:37 PM UTC
A "Memories" poem by the immortal Barry Hodges aka Edna
Night fell on Montmartre and, gazing into my love's eyes
Over a candelit chequered tablecloth,
Beneath my belt lurked rancid lust,
The seams of my trousers oozing love's sweet song,
My groin lumped in desire for her wanton arse-flesh.
Streetlight shone through threadbare curtains
Harnessing proudly over my pounding buttocks;
Hermione's screamed climaxes echoing
In deepest recesses of her third-rate mind.
My clear goal: swallow my salty comings, cow.
Morning exposes a sordid scene to chambermaid's gawp:
Spreadeagled cold-as-chilled-salami ****
Puny synapses crushed like mashed strawberries
Blasted smithereens of overpowering *******
Like chicken's entrails in an unwashed sink.
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 8:41 AM UTC
I can no longer feel a sense of achievement
asking politely for a salami roll at the bakery
Taking in a package for a neighbour
Thanking someone for holding open a door
I can speak my mother tongue here
Recycling the words I've spoken for years
My days hold sentences I've used before,
phrases that were surely among my first handful
Worn out, dulled with age
unlike the shining foreign treasures I left behind
I used to feel a thrill with each new noun
collecting them on the street like a child
picking autumn leaves from the pavement
I found vibrant colour in the commonplace
die Gabel, der Löffel, das Fenster
Observing each syllable, noticing details
that I rush past in my own language
Every new feeling or thought I hadn't the words for
a chance to learn to express them
I navigated my way through conversation
without the map we have here
that allows us to take short-cuts
I listened harder than I ever had before
taking in every single word
Gestures filled the gaps in my vocabulary
A change in expression
Using my whole body to tell my story
to people who appreciated the effort
that went in to making a connection
They took the time to slow down to my pace
over the months, as I learned to communicate
Here, it is easy to make myself understood
But so much harder to make myself heard
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 9:16 PM UTC
.
****
**** *****
Wiener Pecker U
nit ***** Piece T
ool Thing Shaft
Member Doink
er ***** Cack C
hour Chub Pud
******* Wanki
W a n g D ing
a ling Ding Don
g Kielbasa Brat
worst Meat Pop
sicle Meat ther
mometer Bolog
ny pony Salami
Sausage Tube
steak ****** P
orkSword Nood
le Banana Corn
dog Magic wan
d Staff Divine R
od Love muscle
Third leg Tonsi
l tickler Power
drill Jack hamm
er Wedding tac
kle Bat Club Rod
Pole Joystick Ja
ck-in-the-box S
kin flute D-trai
n Mr . Happy B
a ld - headed yo
gurt slinger Lon
g **** Silver Ji
my Johnson Kn
ob Captain Win
ky One eyed W
illy One eyed M
onster Peter On
e eyed trouser
snake The Sala
mander Horse
**** Lincoln lo
g Tootsie Roll F
Lesh trombone
Meat stick Meat
whistle Dobber
Wanger Woody
Shake weight T
iffy Frank and
the beans Ch o
a d t h e dirty
wise man *****
Harry nut cann
on Flesh flute
Satan's clarinet
Sexophone Th e Mayflower ( on
account of all the Puritans who came
on it ) The Wea p o n of A s s
destruction junk mail
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
I'm so bored with winter
Waiting for the thaw
That I spread mayonnaise on the ceiling
And Parkay on the walls
Chicken salad on the chandelier
Tuna on the couch
A sprinkle of some bacon bits
Straight out of the pouch
Grape jelly on the door jams
Peanut butter in the locks
We'll have them eating out of our hands
Like a Canadian Mayor smoking rock
(but only when he's drunk)
Pickle relish in the picture frames
Nutella smeared into the floor
A half a pound of hard salami
Nailed onto the door
A call down to the bakery
Order up some pumpernickel
Slap it on the outside
With the house fixins in the middle
Here you have our special
What you taste you'll soon find out
Welcome to Mike & Savannah's
Famous Sandwich House
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 5:28 PM UTC
Beneath my bed I placed some bread
and on it spread some jam
added some cheese and mushy peas
salami eggs and ham
a blob of sauce mustard of course
and relish three days old
some chips and dips and cherry lips
and baked beans full of mold
there's water cress and what a mess
of earwax and a scab
my used band aid from second grade
and frogspawn from the lab
I topped it off with lager froth
and nose hairs from the sink
and if you thought the food was bad
don't ask what's in his drink.
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 8:06 AM UTC
Beneath my bed I placed some bread
and on it spread some jam
added some cheese and mushy peas
salami eggs and ham
a blob of sauce mustard of course
and relish three days old
some chips and dips and cherry lips
and baked beans full of mold
there's water cress and what a mess
of earwax and a scab
my used band aid from second grade
and frogspawn from the lab
I topped it off with lager froth
and nose hairs from the sink
and if you thought the food was bad
don't ask what's in his drink.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
Even when it leaves you
And you've missed the bus
And your battery has gone
And the hot water has run out
And you just dropped your salami
Be grateful for the colour in your eyes
And for the movement in your face
And how you can swallow your own tea
And the way your mind goes its own way
Despite all conflict today I am grateful
For the people that reached out to me
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 1:55 PM UTC
Alas, poor venison salami, I knew ye well!
You were a dear, dear friend
But then you met your sorry end
at my fair cat’s royal command
I'll sing a dirge & sound the Bell
I'll tip my hat & say farewell
to your sweet, succulent delight
may we ne’er lose it out of sight.
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC
I wonder what this world is coming to
When we have to overcomplicate everything
All I hear on the TV of late
Is ‘bare craic’ as my northern Irish friend would say –
“I can’t understand this credit crunch,” she said
Poignantly, (neither could I) “I think I’ll take
A dander down to the shops.” And so she did
We were out of milk
And living off salami
I picked up the paper
And I realise nothing is without a price
Or a fate
They are the two certainties
So is death
And the price is not so hard to see either.
The American bigwigs sit round a table
Complaining what is to be done about the financial crisis?
Each eating a $16 dollar muffin with their $8.48 coffee
Wondering where oh where can money be saved?
And they’ll get back in their private limos
Drive past their second addresses
Back down to Bel-air
Lock themselves in their villas
Count their bonuses
And sleep happy
After doing jack ****
While Greece is going down the crapper.
I can see the solution
Can you?
Or is it just me?
Or can you see it to?
Nov 11, 2011
Nov 11, 2011 at 3:06 PM UTC