Bowls of Bread and Bombs
Mrs. Crandall's fingers knead A rising loaf, an earthy sourdough Her hearty lentil soup, simmering, Waits to fill. Two boys run through her kitchen - Wild, innocent imagination Evanescent in the blink Of mother's eye. Airplanes scream above them - And Mrs. Crandall, pious, Full of grace, lifts prayerful hands In the dark. "Scurry now, take cover!" They dive beneath The kitchen table, holding bowls of bread, Gouged out by Mrs. Crandall's Fingernails. She feels their faces in the dark Tastes their tears, reassures herself And them, with lentils - candlelit By falling bombs. Smoke spirals from the rubble mingle With scents of blood and sourdough - And savory soup, warm comfort None can taste.
— Holly Jahangiri (April 12, 2023)
Author’s note: Today’s poem was inspired by the April 1 – 13 prompts at Poets Northwest. Thanks to Karen M. for providing them.
Today’s Poet
Sidney Arthur Kilworth Keyes
– an English poet, killed in action during WWII. Read more here.
Sidney Keyes – Poems by the Famous Poet – All Poetry
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
How many lives must face such a sad end 🙁
If only we gave peace a chance.
Indeed, and I think most of us WOULD give peace a chance, but for a few things: wealthy people get wealthier through wars; we cannot imagine sharing scarce resources with other nations (comes from fear and a “shortage mentality”); people whose loved ones, especially their children, have been killed often (understandably) live for revenge. Something breaks in their brains; their despair overwhelms their compassion. I don’t know how we end wars.
By the way, this poem came from combining all the prompts here: http://www.poetsnw.com/april-prompts.html
The images for your A to Z poems are unique, Holly. Have you created them yourself?
I have “collaborated” with Midjourney on most of them – I supply the text prompt, the AI generates an image. On a couple of them, I just fed it the whole poem and went with whatever it generated! It’s fun, but if you look too closely you’ll realize we will never replace the skill and discernment of real artists with it. If I were going to pay for images at all – and I don’t, here, because this blog is a non-revenue-generating hobby! – I’d hire a human.
That is the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth, so help me H.A.L.
This poem is too sad. Well done, evoking all the feels. 🙁
Mitch
Wow, AI did that! But, yes, real artists are way better….I am one! ;P
I know many real artists who are fascinated and having fun with Midjourney AI. It’s a good collaborator for a creative writer – sometimes it’s an effective way to see if visual descriptions accurately convey what’s intended.
Yes, that must be helpful, for sure. As I can see from the images for your posts. They are unique!
You join a great host of poets trying to express the insanity of a world where bombs are prioritized over bread.
Alphabet of Alphabets: King Knox
Thank you for visiting, Anne. It’s hard to understand such a world, isn’t it?
I fixed your link (don’t get too spoiled – and I won’t do that for just anyone, y’know). You need the full contents of the URL from the browser address bar for it to work, but I tracked you down and found you. NOW to read yours.
Too many bombs and not enough lentils being made in the world. Powerful poem and a great image to go with it.
Here from the A-Z and wishing you all the best.
Isn’t that the truth? I’ll take the lentils over bombs any day. All day. Thank you for stopping by!