Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s PhotoPlay prompt. Good memories were shared along with a few of our favorite songs. Here’s a poem by Richard. The heart of a dad, a champion of food coercion:
How Do You Like My Chow
— for my daughter Abby, who finally told me,
“You make the best damn burgers.”
Yeah, I could never make your tea,
as sweet as it should be,
so you always drank your Coke and Capri.
You were always the picky one,
three sugar spoons instead of none,
but, I made unsweet tea, it wasn’t about me.
I only wanted for you to be healthy,
but you just ignored me somehow.
You preferred all of your fast food and soft drinks
and I didn’t eat like your crowd.
How do you like my chow?!
How do you like my chow,
there on your paper plate,
one of my best damn burgers,
bet you just can’t wait.
You wouldn’t listen to me,
but I always dreamed about
making you like good food.
How do like my chow?
Well, I made rice and tender peas,
you turned your back on both of these,
begged me to get you some nuggets and fries.
Then I sautéed chicken and Key West shrimp,
Chorizo, pork and flavored them,
served you Paella with peas on the topside.
You ate it like you hadn’t eaten for days
and it was all I could do not to smile.
Now, you like chopped salad with salmon and broccoli,
it just took a long little while.
How do you like my chow?!
How do you like my chow,
steaming there on your plate?
Would you prefer some Wendy’s
or maybe Chic-Fil-A?
I’m glad you listened to me,
‘cause I always dreamed about
making you like good food.
How do you like my chow?
Be sure to check out the highlights from Photo Prompt participants on the Photo Play Pinterest board! And keep clicking and/or playing with words.
NOTE TO POETS: Looking for your Monday poetry prompt? On Photo Play weeks, it’s right here. Choose a photo from the post and respond with a poem. Leave your poem in the comment box. We’ll be reading. 
***
Photos by Nestor Lacle and Michelle Ortega. Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Heather Eure.
________________________
Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!
Browse Writing Prompts
Browse PhotoPlay
Browse more Poetry Teaching Resources
Richard Maxson says
Thank you for posting my poem. To get things started, here’s a ballad I’ve struggled with for this month’s prompt. I did have a cat named Weaver (briefly 🙁 ) I had no photos, but I found one that resembles him. https://www.flickr.com/photos/125549887@N04/15061519389/
Weaver and the Hiker
The night was dark as sable, the moon behind the clouds.
Foxfire blush was on the trees, an eerie glowing shroud.
A scent of frost at the burrow where she had hunkered down,
with the last of her new born kittens, a tom and barely living,
black as the sky at midnight, curled tight against the ground.
His eyes were green as Jack Pine, his coat was thick and sleek.
He shivered in the shifting wind near his mother old and weak;
Through September and October she’d carried her last brood,
in ally-ways and city streets and many a country mile,
around the corn and sugar cane, looking for a deep, safe wood.
Winter came with morning light, death shelter failed to soothe.
His mother’s eyes were frozen wide with the wild and bitter truth.
In the brambles there he left her whom he had barely known,
and wandered through a corn field, ragged and rattled corn field,
all day he walked the corn fields ‘round stalks as gray as bone.
Chased in day by farm dogs, chased in the night by owls,
chased in the city roads by cars, by peoples’ shouts and scowls,
‘til one day a fair haired hiker, a narrow book in hand,
sat sleeping in the Jack Pine, reclined against a Jack Pine,
his coat cast off in the sunlight and lying in the sand.
Weak from the weary way he’d walked, muddy, matted, worn,
the hiker’s coat a haven in the blessed, gracious morn,
the kitten circled seven times, his feet on the warm coat’s fleece,
his mighty will surrendered in folds of softest splendor,
he laid down by this stranger in sweet and dreamless peace.
With a start he woke and leapt up, the hiker did not move,
but looked his way with blue eyes, welcoming and true.
Both cruelty and kindness confounded his escape.
He was captured by those kind eyes, fearless, gentle blue eyes,
calm like evening blue skies before the night’s moonscape.
Inch by closer inch he came, then back an inch or more,
‘round a pine and ‘round a bush to see what was in store,
the kitten watched the hiker’s boots, still in the wildwood grass,
but never a threatening move they made, never a move to stand.
The kitten knew this hiker, would be a friend at last.
Off to a camp and firelight, before a harvest moon,
a silhouette of the hiker, homeward bound and soon.
Frolicking among the trees, dark as the hiker was blind,
the kitten he named Weaver, while resting near the Jack Pine,
with green eyes he would never see, following close behind.
Heather Eure says
Out of struggle comes beauty…
Prasanta says
Inspired by one of the photos above:
Caroline
She threw her pearls like water, a chain of droplets
Stuck in a moment of time
Caught by the next passerby, the next wave of sunshine
Don’t pause for a second because then the parade
will have passed. This she knew, all too well.
She swung her dress, circle after circle—
When the carousel stopped, she found them,
scattered about the ground, like fine cheese;
like herself.
“It’s what happens,” they said, and she decided
to talk about it.
She now wears a chain of mirrored beads, gems glistening
in the sun’s rays, reflecting images of others circling by.
Heather Eure says
It’s what happens… I like that. Lovely poem.