Sneakily Clever

I am just tooting my own horn (funny on SO many levels) here: I have won third place in a poetry contest. Unfortunately/fortunately, it was a BAD poetry contest. And Jewish, no less. Oy. But it does have to do with food. Doesn't everything?

My entry, "Blue Dishes," (yeah, let's pretend it was my only entry), was called a "sneakily clever paean." Oh, indeed. Because if there is one thing I am, it's sneakily clever.

And here, the write-up and the poem.

Here’s our third-place winner. — who’s written plenty of non-bad material — treats us to this saga that mixes G-dly love, the love of complicated relationships, food love, and love of being rebellious. (And, really, what says “Jewish” more than food, religious laws, and contrariness?)

For her pains, she wins a copy of David M. Bader’s Haikus for Jews — and bragging rights at any party at which she appears for the next 365 days.

Blue Dishes

He said blue dishes “looked dairy,”

She said she’d use them for meat.

He told her, stop being contrary

But she said she wouldn’t retreat.

You would think that someday, the fight would go away

That love and time both would resolve it.

But you would be wrong: Marriage can be quite long

And if anything, this fight dissolved it.

There are those who contend that she went ’round the bend

And purely had acted from spite

When, on their silver, he came down the stairs

And was shocked when he turned on the light.

Surrounded by blue dishes in the kitchen was she

She gestured and said, “Here I am!

I TOLD you these dishes were better for meat!”

And he saw. They were covered with ham.