Empire Asparagus Festival Poetry Contest Winners
First place: Will the real asparagus please stand up? By Marcy Branski
Pulp plopped on my plate
in one soggy
grey-green splat,
my mother’s narrowed
eyes and pursed lips daring
my refusal to eat what
her friend had warmed
and served. My tongue and teeth
doing battle with alien
slime, throat threatening
to expel what the can called
ASPARAGUS. Decades later
a waiter brings
salmon I’ve ordered,
rosy fish flanked
by emerald spears adorned
with threads of lemon zest. Like
the exotic taste of breadfruit
to English sailors landed in Samoa,
the strange petal-topped
spikes perplex me
before I crunch them
between my teeth, caress
them with my tongue
and slowly swallow
with the Mmmm and Ahhh
of new-found
gastronomic bliss.
Second place: Asparagusto! By Jennifer Weil
Delicate flirty spire
of toothsome snap
whose mature still youthful bud
gives rise to wild desire,
You purr as you grow
and with frills wrapped round
your waist in ribboned bow
go pertly from loamy ground
to steaming pan or searing grill
in ambrosial soup, on salad plate;
glistening with brown butter,
you cannot ever fail to sate
the craving for vixenish crunch
whether nestled in fresh hollandaise
in an omelette of herbs
or dipped au natural for lunch
I weep! for your rare form,
verdant perfection of efficiency
is unparalleled in all your realm
and this sad deficiency
makes loyalists lament
the short reign of the graceful queen
whose passing is more sorely felt
amid the field of ordinary greens.
Third place: A spare god By Mary O’Neill
When winter’s white begins to fade,
And spring’s advance is clearly made,
From far and wide, they gather here
To glorify a grassy blade.
Powerful! the delicate spear
That causes man to act so queer.
To immortalize through parade:
Strangest festival of the year.
The exalted shoot reigns supreme
In the eyes of these human beings.
A simple stalk! A phallic symbol!
Sturdy, singular, proud and lean.
Who are these men who so obsess?
How can you tell them from the rest?
It’s you (and it’s me — truth be told),
Disciples of asparagus!
