We think of chocolate as a sweet candy created during modern times. Actually, chocolate dates back to the ancient people of Mesoamerica. Chocolate wasn't just a favorite food--it played an important role in their religious and social lives.
Dark is better,
Magic black;
Spiritual money.
Treat yourself to a truffle
Buy a bon-bon
Science says dark chocolate
Without milk
Is heart healthy.
Discovered in the rain forests
Two thousand years ago,
Maya and Aztec royalty
Drank it frothy,
Spicy and bitter.
Some are allergic to chocolate—
So sad!
Mom baked
Kitchen scented,
Mouth watering
Chocolate cakes
Along with pecan,
Chocolate chip cookies
Heating savory air.
Hanging around like a puppy
Scraping the frosting bowl clean;
Licking the spatula
Was more fun than playing
Front yard pirates.
Rainy days trigger
Left over memories
Of that long ago kitchen
Bringing desire;
A craving for something creamy and dark
Like a chocolate fudge Sunday
Smearing lips with sticky,
Lip clinging excellent mud.
It rained hundreds of inches in Vietnam.
Slogging in from a patrol or ambush
Covered in mucky sludge
Clinging to weapons
Was a reminder of younger days
As a child
Raised in a country
Where children may be
A pampered,
Protected alien species
Living a fantasy life with
Chocolate as a regular treat
Then you turn eighteen!
Does it rain in Iraq
Or Afghanistan?
______________________________
"I was struck by the beauty of the cover, and I certainly was not disappointed by the book's contents. A fascinating illumination of nineteenth-century Chinese culture and the complex Englishman Robert Hart, the father of China's modernization. Hart's struggles adapting to Chinese culture, always feeling the pull and force of his Victorian British background, are compelling. His relationships with his concubine and his concubine's sister are poignant--the novel is as much a study of the complexities of love as it is anything else. A powerful novel whose beauty exceeds that of the book's cover.” Writer's Digest judge, November, 2008.
A chocolate plant lies just west of here, so I know the dark smell. We used to have cocoa to clean off the windowsills and walls. I love the bend this poem goes around at the end, slick as a race car.
Alas, I'm one of those, allergic to chocolate ... but will hang it all if I can eat some more of these delicious words - a bit of history blended with memories: well done.
“The woman or man who is a poet, or fiction writer, or playwright, or all of these, is engaged constantly in a jazz ballet of vocabularies, passions, genders, histories, perspectives, death, love, and life. The music of revelation announces itself to
This is a book of free verse poetry that addresses the seven main tests in life and offers some sensible solutions to passing those tests with minimal discomfort.
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Edwin
Be always safe,
Karen
sludge of Vietnam, all in the name of chocolate. Excellent, Lloyd.
-gene.
Alas, I'm one of those, allergic to chocolate ... but will hang it all if I can eat some more of these delicious words - a bit of history blended with memories: well done.
(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.