Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: taste


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Non pareil

With thanks to M.F.K. Fisher

The kitchen basket is almost empty
a single red tomato moated with sunlight 
waits for my touch
 
Time is short, blooms of mold 
will soon claim it and I don’t want to lose
this object of my tongue’s lust

Perfectly ripe, its sleek skin 
hints at a tantalizing split 
ignored for now

and I dismiss the temptation to ravish
without finesse, preferring
the small pleasures of anticipation

So, slices fanned onto a blue moroccan plate
dressed in a squeeze of lemon, green olive oil
and basil slivers

become lunchtime’s non pareil
Each piece a grapeshot burst against my lips
already parted in pleasure

Originally published on 1/8/2021; reposted with small edits.


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The Angle of Later Light

It’s my life up to now
with its camp follower memories
thirsty for acknowledgement
wanting to do their chorus line kicks
before time runs out
senses ambushed by everything

It does not take much does it                                    
a lemon hiding its sharp tongue
in a cheerful skin but once married
to sugar or butter is a
blanket of surprises

A remembered tomato eaten
seconds off the vine
warm in the hot sun
Socks pulled onto cold feet
the quick bliss of warmth
a soft second skin

The cut and scrape of a
hand turned can opener
to reveal humble tuna
The deep heart of color
in an emerald

Honey carrying its own
geography to the tongue
A window open to the
dense night of a city summer                                    
and a mockingbird sings
near the fountain steps
I imagine it a nightingale

Movies in childhood
red and gold palaces of escape
sitting in the dark
impatient for the approaching
light and color and sound
calling from the screen

The angle of later light
the heart’s golden hour
slowly pressed into
star filled night

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Image copyright © 2023 Kate Rantilla, All Rights Reserved.


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Green Dreams

The catalog arrived today
injecting green into my thoughts
lush garden dreams now underway

Vast lettuce rows not puny pots
rich hills of beans with tongues of fire
espaliered trees of downy apricots

Splashed color stokes my fierce desire
until the bubble pops and I fall back to earth
my garden plot is small, the barrow needs a tire

A reset needed for this year’s rebirth

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NaPoWriMo Day 5: the prompt was exotic seed names, using one in a poem. I had a yen to dabble once again with rhyme and a bit of humor, and chose the terza rima: aba bcb cdc d.