as I chew mechanically, the bran around my tongue
like wet sawdust (or what I imagine wet sawdust must be like).
I look out at the rain and know within the hour,
as I trudge across the Meadows, that memory
will linger behind the toothpaste in my mouth,
my mind a blank between the headphones,
my feet as cold as a splinter in the heart.
is not as good as that brownie I smuggled
into my final Final and ate with half an hour to go. . .
Coming down I felt like that guy who flew to Moscow
undetected by the Russians’ radars –
landing in Red Square in his tiny model plane
how could he not feel the wonder and the folly of it all
as the uniforms encircled him with rifles raised?
You stand quietly on the table
Unlike a poet
Who, if standing on the table
Is unlikely to be quiet.
Monday morning and it’s toast as usual,
maybe a flapjack to follow the sandwiches later.
It could be you but
my number has never come up.
I try to console myself by thinking
my luck is saving itself for better things,
my day of zest and glory is yet to come
but thoughts return of the mystery
beneath its silver veil
that Holy Grail of citrus peel
or bottled essence
I am raising its airy yet moist
light yet substantial
perfectly spherical form
onto the cake dish
the children's eyes are wide
I prepare to cut into it
who will fortune favour with the first slice?
we bite
into yellowest promise
leaving aside all
coffee peppermint blackcurrant orange
prepared to accompany it
relishing only very lemonness
spooning up the scattered crumbs.
Each Monday morning as I bite into my buttered toast
I conceive
a minor miracle of transubstatiation.
A neck mole.
Me, on 'C' lake.
Make clone.
Enema lock.
Mo, Eck, Lena.
Lo, mean Eck!
Ace elk, mon!
A leek? - C' mon!
Kneel, o Mac!
Mock an eel!
O keen clam!
Eke on, clam!
Eek, no clam!
Clean me, OK?
Most websites don't allow for scratch & sniff
especially those with literary pretensions.
But lemon cakes for prizes? Just a whiff
and ever you'll be hooked on this confection!
Each month the cake sits waiting for a winner
– the raffle keeps Shore Poets on the road –
Its mythic recipe would be a sin to
give away: it's worth its weight in gold.
So flour and sugar, lemon, eggs and butter,
mixed carefully in just the right proportion,
whet appetites for villanelle and sonnet,
well-ordered words selected to perfection.
A blend of poems and music is our quest
and all delivered with panache and zest!
A lemon zest for life,
eat to enjoy, live till you’re full,
forget increasing hip inches, tooth decay.
Something will get you in the end. Savour
the taste of today. Tomorrow is crumbling.
I carried home this big dollop of the sun
that had landed in my lucky lap,
afraid my smug smile
would alert a sweet toothed mugger crying,
“Your Lemon Cake or your life!”
I unwrapped the layers of astronaut’s foil
round this edible asteroid,
like a solo game of Pass the Parcel,
to find
a big fat face of a cake
steeped in secret seeping syrup
with the shivery tang of the lemoniest lemon ever,
its soft moist crumbs
sticking to the plate
then melting
gorgeously
in the mouth.
As the week goes on,
The Lemon Cake diminishes;
its big fat face changing
slice by slice.
Yet, strangely
when I look in the mirror
I see it still.