"vinegar" poems
My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.
Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.
While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.
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someone's in the next room over
having *** while we
are weeping
what a way to mark the occasion
the day my fingers found a wound
you let someone else doctor
it's upsetting see
the bible in drawer next to us
the way our hands still
fit together
like the torn halves
of a love letter
the way you got
all dressed up like the rain
and how we couldn't tell
the difference in the shower
it was the longest hour and a half
spent crying
the hot water wouldn't give up
so why should we
right?
even though it was scalding
neither of us touched the ****
we knew this was supposed to hurt
your hair
a black mess against my shoulder
my fingers
oil in the vinegar of your hands
our bodies
the great divide
all the sobbing
a river runs through it
without the courage
to carry or **** us
so we step out
and drip dry
down to a mute breakfast
composed of quiet
and last nights liquor
as we came back in
there were people in our room
at first i thought them detectives
dissecting things
to see who had died here
i had forgotten this
was a hotel
and they were only
cleaning up after us
i wanted to stop them
plead
that the sheets were still perfect
that if they clean the bathroom
no one will know
what happened here
someone has to remember
*"please
i know
these cigarette burns
by name
i will bury the faucet
let me take the tub
i don't care how
if i have to
i will drag it home by hand*"
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people
On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:
It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we
Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round
Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice
Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle
They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,
Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,
But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,
Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore
The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,
So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims
In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate
Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline
Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper
Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,
Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!
We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff
Battalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns
If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest
And grayer; not even moving their bones.
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The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
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Dear Pickle,
You are making my face sour. Mom is mad at you for skipping school and I have to talk her down again.
Maybe next time you can write me a 1200 word essay on "How stupid your decisions are", So I can mark it up with red pen before you lose grades on your ribs.
Sister, you need to calm your *** down, because the world isn't a race and the underdog doesn't always come in first, or even second.
But take a second to stop breathing that smoke you call air, everybody is choking on the smell of teen-spirit.
The tattoos not yet ingaved in your skin will serve as a reminder of how you took last place in a family full of sharp broken pieces of glass.
I tell Mom "Don't worry, it's just a phase, she just needs a second to find her place, in this world" But, at this rate, I'm not sure you will.
Because, people will knock on your door and hand you bottles of quick fixes and Novocaine, and I hope that this poem isn't in vain to serve as a reminder of that little girl that still caught fireflies in her teeth.
And I am sorry I left for 3 years without watching your molecules multiply, but I wrote my times tables on the back of my diploma for you to study.
That 6 year old girl with woodland creature cheeks hasn't been forgotten.
That 6 year old girl who never failed to puke in the car after a glass of milk hasn't been forgotten.
That 6 year old girl that cried every time we told anyone you are cat food under the kitchen table hasn't been forgotten.
I am sorry, can you bring her back now?
And for me, could you stop making Mom cry, she has watered so many Forget-me-nots that I am afraid her roots are drowning.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate all the time you bared swords and shields to defend me against the stereotypes that threatened to staple them themselves to the inside of our cheeks, but come on...get your **** together.
We are blood-brothers...with vaginas.
Don't you dare break that bond because if you do I will lock you in the closet, turn the lights of and leave you in there screaming and crying until the rebellion leaves your bladder.
I'm your sister, not your mother. I will not birth any more brother screw-ups for you to father.
Love,
Vinegar.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 2:39 PM UTC
Hark! Take heed, for this cake be both mighty and magnificent!
1.75 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
0.75 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup (as in 8 fl.oz/250mL.) strongly brewed coffee (make more and drink it!)
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 tbs. white vinegar+1 cup milk mixed well, blah blah)
0.5 cups cocoanut oil (or 0.33 cups basicallywhatever oil), a little less if ***
1 tsp. vanilla extract
OPTIONAL:
2-3 shots (60-90mL; 0.2-0.33 cups) black spiced *** (Kraken, if at all possible)
I also want to experiment with whiskey/burbon.. if you try it, let me know!
--Flour, sugar cocoa powder, baking soda+powder, salt mixed in one bowl
-- eggs, coffee, *** buttermilk, oil, vanilla in another
Slowly mix the dry into the wet until as homogenous as possible.
I use an 8"x8" (20cmx20cm) pan @350F (175 C) for about 40 minutes, but I check on it at round 30 minutes because some variance may well apply. If you use olive oil, or avocado oil, or whatever other more fluid oil, I find a slightly hotter oven (375 F/190 C) can be advisable, but pay attention to your specific scenario! The worst that's happened for me is the top gets a bit crusty, but that pleasantly works with the overall moisture of the cake, especially with olive oil and the *** addition.
Do the toothpick test to see if it's ready!
Frosting is applicable, as well, because this Magical Cake is not horribly sweet for how horribly sweet it sure is. I usually just sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on it to make it look all fancy for my classy friends and band-mates.
ENJOY!
Bake responsibly, but have some fun.
Also, suffer the decimals!
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 8:53 AM UTC
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a ***
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
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“Yorkshire! Yorkshire!” I hear the EDL scream,
as if somehow the county, relates to their regime?
Trying to push on others their far right views,
and tainting Yorkshire with their taboos
cos Yorkshire to me, is whatever the **** I want it to be,
I do love a bit of local pride...
maybe to revel in the comfort it provides,
and even though stereotypes say we're tight,
as well as stubborn, argumentative (they're prolly right),
But I'd rather that, than be uptight,
like a stereotypical southerner might
I recently read a quote from Stuart Maconie,
“England has a bottom half,
but there isn't a south, in the same way there's a north”
The North in the south means desolation,
A cultural wasteland with deserted stations,
a place built on violent, aggressive foundations,
With mid summer Arctic temperature fluctuations,
Nothing that comes close to a nation....
But that's not what I see,
To be from the north means good fish and chips,
with tomato sauce and vinegar, it's glory on the lips,
I see people willing to lend a hand,
A honest chat about the weather as you stand at a bus stop
that you never planned,
It doesn't matter whether it's a cob, bun, bap, barm or roll,
Or that the north was ****** over by the outsourcing of coal,
Or your opinion that we're all just sat on the dole, drinking tea out of a ***** bowl.
We should still all have a similar goal,
To have a good time,
and not hurt a soul
Sometimes I do like to revel in the divide,
but I'll always welcome people from the other side,
Acceptance is not sin,
and if you let it,
it generally ends up with a win : win
What's Yorkshire to you? I haven't got a clue... but come sit down so we can have a chat and a brew! And hopefully we'll both learn something we never knew.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC
I have a painting of a purple-haired
kurt cobain hanging in
my bathroom so I can feel the
nostalgia of being a broken
head shadow
put in a
anechoic heart-shaped box
a dream split inside myself
halved and halved
again
like I’m living on a tiny
blue sun stuffed in a jar
filled with vinegar
shooting speedballs
in a lukewarm bubble
bath
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 2:18 PM UTC
When I think of you
I see your smile
Shining like the sun above
It brightens up my world.
When I think of you
I feel your eyes on me
Heavy, like gravity
You keep holding me up.
When I think of you
I hear your words
Loud as thunder
They tumble in my head.
When I think of you
I taste my tears
Sour as vinegar
They flood my cheeks.
When I think of you
I hear my one sided love
Distant as the stars in the sky
You reach for her.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
I stand on the scale
I look at the number
I'm fat
I way over 140lbs
What am I doing wrong?
I barely eat anything
She steps off the scale
Walks over to the counter
And opens the cupboard
Peanut butter
She untwists the twisty ties
Grabs two pieces of white bread
Places them in the toaster slots
Pulls down the lever
For ten seconds
Pulls it up
Pulls it down
Waits ten more seconds
Pulls it up
Takes it out
Spreads the peanutty butter across the crisp edges
Starts eating it
Nom nom nom
Her dog moves close to the counter
And begs
She walks away
Drops a few crumbs
And the dog eats it up
And follows her into the living room
And looks up
Nom nom nom nom
She just looks at the dog
Puts her bare foot against his nose
Which is cold
And the dog doesn't even move
Sticks his tongue outside his mouth
And breathes quickly
Stupid
She puts her foot back down
And moves it against the rug a few times
Then walks into the kitchen
And opens a bag
Of salt and vinegar chips
Starts eating them
Nom nom nom nom
Dog catches the crumbs and slides against the kitchen floor
She walks back upstairs
And the dog follows her
To her room
She shuts the door
And the dog starts scratching through the bottom
And barks
She just lays in her bed
Eating
The dog barks again
She opens the door
And pushes him
With her right foot
Down the stairs
He tumbles down the stairs and hits the kitchen floor
He races back up
Gets pushed back down
Dog runs away
She walks towards the bathroom
And uses the other scale
And she sees that it says 141 lbs
I've only been eating for a few minutes
Errrr
She closes the bag of chips
And stomps downstairs
And places the bag on the counter
Dog waits in the living room
Right next to the kitchen
His food bowl is empty
No water
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 6:49 PM UTC
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the *****
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.
5.9k
Twenty seven months of sunlight showers,
and I am still white –
can he pull me into vinegar?
Make my skin peel into another shade?
No one will recognize.
Our relationship is an oasis, not on a map
but I can spread like an ancient one –
used to being fingered and opened,
garden is a home of myriad wedding vows
when the wind gusts, he feels a promise
touching concealed cartilage
of his ear. No one has spoken so low and
has been heard by anyone even if
the feeling hangs like ferns from a rooftop.
And our body, our single form
hums in a similar silhouette with him above.
No one can amputate his seed from me:
I keep growing into last December
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
Pickle Haiku
F J McCarthy on Jul 17, 2009
Green fresh cucumber
Drowning in spiced vinegar
Reborn a pickle
Jul 10, 2010
Jul 10, 2010 at 3:31 PM UTC
In My Salad Days
Salad Days
**Wikipedia:
Modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities, not necessarily in that person's youth.**
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Salad
Hints of tints of golden
pear skins,
combine with
ruby'd cranberries
each a face, the cheeks of alcoholic old men,
each wrinkle,
a life's recording.
All are mates for the
marcona almonds
nestling, playing hide n' go seeking
tween silk sheeted leaves of
butter lettuce.
All dressed to the nines,
underneath a top hatted, cravatted, Fred Astaire
marinade.
Coated, bathed, loved,
protected by a vinegar of balsams,
aged grape must, pressed,
a lovely, desirable color,
a brown and bronzed rust,
pressed, then left,
to easy rest for
oh so many years,
like I do, easy resting,
when you feed me in
My Salad Days.
The Days
Though it was a life, decades destructed
Millenniums of de minimus,
Forty plus Seders of exile, of hell,
Marked by promises, whispers, horseradish tears of
Next Year and Jerusalem,
Time steeped in a tradition of patient waiting.
Each year, recorded by a spot of red wine
Purposely Spilled,
By my father on unbleached Passover tablecloth,
To example, to symbolize that
Messiness in life,
Is O.K.
The Salad Days
Salad served with irony generous,
When beard greyed and scraggly,
White speckled, wisps of sea salt,
All my youthful greenery, long wilted.
Yet the words herein writ are my
Afikomen, my just dessert,
My victory song of Hallelujah
Just before we eat, celebrating
My Feast of Ascension, marking a
Delayed Arrival, yet right-on time of
My Salad Days.
It was only when
I was resurrected as two bodies,
A pair of cuffed links coupled,
In My Salad Days,
With the taste of freedom,
A first-born infant survivor,
Was I rebirthed, and to the fore, risen.
When words fell from smiling lips, and
Rain and tears flew upwards, and
Each and every breath was an
Amen.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 1:44 PM UTC
We all want to feel like flashing lights
but we're just stained silverware:
rusty, dusty, *****
old, unappreciated,
hidden deep inside the closet.
We're only good for certain occasions
when we're brought out
handled with care, doused in vinegar
scraping the age of our backs
bringing us into Life, anew.
Yet some sets fit certain settings.
Appetizer? Main Course? Dessert? Dish Washer? Dropped on the floor?
Sometimes none at all because
we can be "made in china"
or from fine china.
*And I hated the feeling I got
sitting in the middle of the table like a tuning fork
where everyone was passing food around
and I was just vibrating in their rhythm and sound.
I've been through many sets
much not quite like this.
Still life repeats itself like history
speaking of which, is actually me.*
*I've been held but never used,
maybe I have but not in the right way.
I was made to look like a fool
and I feel*
**just.
that.**
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
I know where to find you
drunk in the garden
having another existential crisis
conversing with the plastic pink flamingos
they think you're 'hollow'
and that your exterior is too polished
he sees his own reflection when he looks at you
Your youth was made up of
cringe-worthy hair styles and room temperature beer
with the taste of **** and vinegar
and the prospect of milk and honey
alas, you're 24 now
perfecting the art of escapism
disenchanted, delusional
You're just clearing your throat
to say nothing at all
ahem
and continuing to romanticize recycled lifestyles
in the name of authenticity
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 10:23 AM UTC
The Great Newfoundland novel (summation)
A young man brimming with
Townie **** and vinegar or
Bay boy brimming with obnoxious bravado
Eventually he leaves and discovers
How people treat fellow man
Seemingly beaten down
Genetic history Of Newfoundland Truck System
Alongside founders population variance,
Upward spike in heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers
Lurks engrained learned hopelessness
Smouldering in "Newfie" jokes
You'd better hope I let it slide
Unless you wanna find out
What a peat moss bog smells like
Or how it feels to freeze to death
Tied to a crucifix
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 9:10 PM UTC
Two things that do not go together:
Oil and vinegar
Like two puzzle pieces that don’t fit, one bigger and heavier, the other smaller and lighter. One sits slightly on top patiently, waiting for some impatient six year old to try and make them, squashing, trying to change them and mash them into one picture, you take your bread and you dip, and these two things that cannot physically mix taste perfect.
Fire and ice
For one is too hot to handle her own heat and the other is too cold to be touched by human hands. Get them too close and sparks fly- he melts from a glacier into a puddle at her hearth, but to his misfortune leaks a liquid love and puts her out.
You and me
Like the puzzle pieces, I sit smaller and savvier, waiting patiently as you sit heavy and heartbroken over what you could never have but always deserved. But nothing is perfect, because for five years you were too cold and I too eager, and we destroyed each other- you when you caved and I when you drowned me out and now you are so far away. We wait patiently for someone to force us to fit, while everyone who comes along merely samples and says we are perfect.
Feb 15, 2011
Feb 15, 2011 at 8:13 PM UTC
"Everyone wants to be a little anorexic" she says
"You know, like, in a glamorous way, like fashion friendly anorexic"
I bite my cheek and nod, pretend to agree
All I can think of is waking up to stars dancing on the ceiling
Pale skin with bruises of unknown origins
And battered feet on and off the scale
Almonds in Ziploc baggies
Bite marks on fingers
Hair down the drain
Measuring crunches by the marks they leave on your spine
And battered feet on and off the scale
Enough water to turn organs into boats
Eating an apple with a fork and knife
Desperate hands grasping for ribs
And battered feet on and off the scale
Standing and the world going dark
Coughing around shots of apple cider vinegar
Carrying an emergency rice cake for weak spells
And battered feet on and off the scale
Enough green tea to drown organs
Sugar free gum to mask the smell of decaying organs
Whatever nail polish covers yellow and purple
And battered feet on and off the scale
How many calories are in toothpaste
Thinspo blogs
Pillows squeezed between thighs
And battered feet on and off the scale
Is today the day my heart gives out
Waking every day in a new body
Fingers clasped around wrists
And battered feet on and off the scale
Notebooks filled with numbers
Purple crescents under eyes
Fingers clasped around forearms
And battered feet on and off the scale
Elbows knocking into hipbones
Being scared of your own reflection
Lies to get out of dinner
And battered feet on and off the scale
The stench of *****
Oxygen that tastes of Splenda
Fingers clasped around biceps
And bleeding feet on and off the scale
If this is your idea of glamour
Then you can have it
Nov 27, 2018
Nov 27, 2018 at 12:48 PM UTC
I think I can relate you to vinegar.
Bitter, noxious, not very useful all alone.
I don't think I warned you,
but I'm a lot like bleach.
Caustic, corrosive, flammable,
and absolutely wonderful with the right material.
Now, put us together.
Were we both so stupid not to realise
that vinegar and bleach
make toxic chlorine gas?
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
The Second Book
Forms of Pain
Losing yourself to distress,
Forgetting your own birthday,
Unrequited love,
The beauty of your rival,
Plans on a rainy day,
Vinegar on wounded skin,
Saying ‘goodbye’ again,
Roadblocks with no detour
©Copyright 2014 Written and Edited by Racquel Davis
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
It tastes sour in my skin
The water diverts his eyes upon the curves
I rub them with my fingernails
The tips cried for disturbance.
The pebbled stones in purity
Spit out their dirt with every moist
The need to exhale the longing days
The desolation of their own race.
It stinks with the cover of my skin
No vinegar to pour on the occuring reds
No tablet nor capsule to jive the tummy
There, I'll groove with the ratio of water.
I left the leaves on the dirt
And yes, those gravel and mated things in the sack
Alone am I, here in my own nest
Watching the faded stars and grasping the air.
Neither can I reach the ultimatum
The shutters in me were all aware and trained
The body in rest be put in silence
For the war of itch diverts the angle.
(6/13/14 @xirlleelang)
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC