Soul food

Here's the second of three holiday themed poems I wrote at least 20 years ago. (The first poem is here.) Looking at this poem now, I don't see any connection at all with the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, except for all that food.

Hungry

Food! Food! Bring it quick!
Feed me soon or I'll be sick.
Fry me taters, slice me rye.
Look lively mate; I'm about to die.
Bring me corned beef. Now set it there.
Where's the mustard? Where's my chair?
I'm so hungry I could bite a bear!
Gobble gobble... burrrp! Ahhhh, there.
Who? What? You're going where?
I don't think you're being fair.
What's eating you? Why this rebuff?
Of course I love you. Quite enough.
Your hands like hams, your arms like steaks,
spun candy hair, your feet like cakes.
What have I done? What can I do?
What do you mean 'I'm starving you.'?
I don't see how. We eat for nine.
Why, just last night - my, how we dined!
Wy do your lips allow a sigh?
Well, before you leave, is there any pie?

I later rewrote the poem in prose. It's reprinted below.

Soul Food

"Food, food, I must have food!" exclaimed the man to his wife. "Quickly
woman, look alive. Bring me my supper and then grab you a chair."

The man's mouth made great greasy gobbling sounds as he consumed a whole corned beef, a sackful of fried potatoes, four slices of steaming rye bread slathered with soft creamy butter, a veggie quiche and, for dessert, three freshly baked apple tarts.

Wife hardly touched her plate.

At last, when the man could eat no more, he leaned back in his chair and
belched. Wife stared wistfully into the distance.

"What is it woman? Why do you stare with eyes like buckshot?

Wife straightened her shoulders. Her lips began to tremble.

"You love my food, but you don't love me," she cried, her words a tumbling
river of despair.

"Why, whatever do you mean I don't love you?" the man replied. "Of course I
love you, quite more than enough, if truth be known. I love your cooking. I
love your cleaning. I love your bed making. What more is there to love?"

A single tear rolled down wife's cheek.

"You don't understand what I'm telling you," she said softly. And then, in a
whisper barely heard, wife said, "You're starving me. Oh, don't you see?"

The man, who was not very bright about such things, did not see at all.

"Starving you? I don't see how. We eat well enough. You always get your
share."

A weary sigh escaped wife's lips.

"Starving, indeed!" the man thought. "The woman's gone quite daft."

Instead, the woman went out that evening, never to return.

Comments

[Sleep Apnea Cures]

This poem is really funny!