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)

The Place of the Damned All folks who pretend to religion and grace, Allow there’s a HELL, but dispute of the place: But, if HELL […]...

Seth Compton When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring […]...

MARIE LAVEAU TALKS ABOUT MAGIC FROM A CONFESSIONAL IN ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL Marie Laveau, a colored woman who eventually became Known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, often used Her knowledge […]...

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 […]...

Unde Malum Where does evil come from? It comes From man Always from man Only from man – Tadeusz Rozewicz Alas, dear […]...

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 […]...

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 […]...

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 […]...

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 […]...

Knoxville Tennessee I always like summer Best You can eat fresh corn From daddy’s garden And okra And greens And cabbage And […]...

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 […]...

Hymn 128 The apostles’ commission. Mark 16:15ff; Matt. 28:18ff. “O preach my gospel,” saith the Lord, “Bid the whole earth my grace […]...

The Lost Drink I had spent the night in the watch-house My head was the size of three So I went and asked […]...

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 […]...

Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have […]...

Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister I. Gr-r-r – there go, my heart’s abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s […]...

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 […]...

Mrs. Williams I was the milliner Talked about, lied about, Mother of Dora, Whose strange disappearance Was charged to her rearing. My […]...

John Hancock Otis As to democracy, fellow citizens, Are you not prepared to admit That I, who inherited riches and was to the […]...

Mabel Osborne Your red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium! But you do not ask for water. You cannot speak! […]...

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, […]...

When I'm Killed When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With […]...

Psalm 82 God in the *great *assembly stands *Bagnadath-el Of Kings and lordly States, Among the gods* on both his hands. *Bekerev. […]...

Honey At The Table It fills you with the soft Essence of vanished flowers, it becomes A trickle sharp as a hair that you […]...

Sam swill sam swill Took a pill Went blue Ate stew Had pains No brains Sucked a date Too late Swallowed stone […]...

Flower-Gathering I LEFT you in the morning, And in the morning glow, You walked a way beside me To make me […]...

The Mask Of Evil On my wall hangs a Japanese carving, The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer. Sympathetically I observe […]...

Henry C. Calhoun I reached the highest place in Spoon River, But through what bitterness of spirit! The face of my father, sitting […]...

Wallace Ferguson There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above The wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blown Out […]...

The Pelagian Drinking Song Pelagius lived at Kardanoel And taught a doctrine there How, whether you went to heaven or to hell It was […]...

The Lover in Hell Eternally the choking steam goes up From the black pools of seething oil. . . . How merry Those little […]...

Penelope In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He […]...

Related posts: