Ode to Gumbo
after Sue Owen
Born from flour anointed with oil,
From a roux dark and mean as a horse’s breath,
You remind me of some strange, mystical stew
Spawned from a muddy version of Macbeth.
Only someone’s replaced the spells with spices,
The witches with a Cajun chef.
Maybe you’re a recipe torn from Satan’s Cookbook,
A kind of dumb-downed devil’s brew
Where evil stirs its wicked spoon
In a swampy sacrificial hue.
Maybe God damned the okra that thickens
Your soup, the muddy bones that haunt your stew.
Maybe this is why, when we smell the cayenne,
We’re struck dumb as a moth.
Maybe this is why everything that crawls or flies
Seems to find its way into your swampy broth.
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)Related poetry:
- Unde Malum Where does evil come from? It comes From man Always from man Only from man – Tadeusz Rozewicz Alas, dear […]...
- Seth Compton When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring […]...
- Holy Thursday They’re kindly here, to let us linger so late, Long after the shutters are up. A waiter glides from the […]...
- Brother And Sister “SISTER, sister, go to bed! Go and rest your weary head.” Thus the prudent brother said. “Do you want a […]...
- The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees […]...
- The Folly Of Being Comforted One that is ever kind said yesterday: ‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her […]...
- One Step Backward Taken Not only sands and gravels Were once more on their travels, But gulping muddy gallons Great boulders off their balance […]...
- Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have […]...
- Opening the Geode When the molten earth seethed In its whirling cauldron Nobody watched the pot From a tall wooden stool Set out […]...
- Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt […]...
- Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess’d, Which ceaseth not to tempt […]...
- The Andante of Snakes They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at […]...
- Soup I SAW a famous man eating soup. I say he was lifting a fat broth Into his mouth with a […]...
- Archibald Higbie I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, I was ashamed of you. I despised you As […]...
- Nymphs Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain, Oreads all? Nothing at all stirs here save the drip […]...
- The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon There is an inn, a merry old inn Beneath an old grey hill, And there they brew a beer so […]...
- Where? My snowy eupatorium has dropped Its silver threads of petals in the night; No signal told its blossoming had stopped; […]...
- Psalm 01 Done into Verse, 1653. Bless’d is the man who hath not walk’d astray In counsel of the wicked, and ith’way […]...
- In Mind There’s in my mind a woman Of innocence, unadorned but Fair-featured and smelling of Apples or grass. She wears A […]...
- Ignorance Oh happy he who cannot see With scientific eyes; Who does not know how flowers grow, And is not planet […]...
- The Lost Drink I had spent the night in the watch-house My head was the size of three So I went and asked […]...
- Mud Soup 1. Had the ham bone, had the lentils, Got to meat store for the salt pork, Got to grocery for […]...
- Grandad Heaven’s mighty sweet, I guess; Ain’t no rush to git there: Been a sinner, more or less; Maybe wouldn’t fit […]...
- Ezra Bartlett A chaplain in the army, A chaplain in the prisons, An exhorter in Spoon River, Drunk with divinity, Spoon River […]...
- John Hancock Otis As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the […]...
- Mrs. Williams I was the milliner Talked about, lied about, Mother of Dora, Whose strange disappearance Was charged to her rearing. My […]...
- Her Kind I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my […]...
- Richard Bone When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. […]...
- Mabel Osborne Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium! But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! […]...
- Psalm 82 God in the *great *assembly stands *Bagnadath-el Of Kings and lordly States, Among the gods* on both his hands. *Bekerev. […]...
- Uriel IT fell in the ancient periods Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coin’d itself Into calendar […]...
- The Song against Grocers God made the wicked Grocer For a mystery and a sign, That men might shun the awful shops And go […]...
- TO BE MERRY Let’s now take our time, While we’re in our prime, And old, old age is afar off; For the evil, […]...
- Sylvia's Death for Sylvia Plath O Sylvia, Sylvia, With a dead box of stones and spoons, With two children, two meteors Wandering […]...
- Saturday's Child Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the […]...
- Sam swill sam swill Took a pill Went blue Ate stew Had pains No brains Sucked a date Too late Swallowed stone […]...
- Psalm 18 part 2 v.20-26 L. M. Sincerity proved and rewarded. Lord, thou hast seen my soul sincere, Hast made thy truth and love […]...
- COMING TO TERMS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA Why our son, why? Every morning the same dark chorus wakes me And I wonder how I am still alive. […]...
- Penelope In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He […]...
- Flower-Gathering I LEFT you in the morning, And in the morning glow, You walked a way beside me To make me […]...