Ode to the Mango

Oh Mango!

i just ate the best specimen of you today
i can die a thrilled and exhilarated human being!
Oh Mango - delightful sister in the Anacardiceae family -
you are soil sun forest and nectar gloriously fused
there is no other fruit like you
you bring out proud and unashamed selfishness in me
i want to eat you all alone
you are made to be eaten in your exotic entirety
juicy and messy
even when i slice off your skin
i dig my teeth inside each peel
to run the very last sweetness of
your exquisiteness over my tongue
i can only be so patient and civilised
soon i throw the knife clatteringly into the basin
i grab hold of you with my two adoring hands
Oh Mango!
i sink my teeth deep
thrusting close closer and closest to your heart
i suck and pull at your clinging fibres
there is a leafiness
an earthiness
a primordial forestiness
that nestles in your flesh
i try to capsule your inimitable aroma with my tongue
i want to shackle you to my throat
you are sweet sun incarnate
oh drip down my throat forever and ever
let my uvula turn into the branch of a tree from
where you can hang your volcanic flavour and
lava over the voraciousness of my ravishing
Oh Mango!
you have gravitas
you have presence
you have boldness
you have splendiferous explosiveness
when i peel you it is like pulling the trigger from a grenade
but the explosion is not bloody and damaging
it is healing binding connecting
my every tissue into a wholeness of harmony
i do not dismay when your fibres cling between my teeth
i do not grab for the floss
i let the last signs of mango
turn my teeth into flying buttresses and
my tongue into singing spires
Oh Mango!
you make my mouth rise
like a grand cathedral from
your radiant revelations

 - Lara Kirsten

An Odious Ode to Writer's Bloc

Oh, how Cunning and Pernicious Thou art
Acting like a Real Despicable Upstart
You make me Gobsmacked and Tongue-Tied,
How dare you walk with such a Confident Stride?
You leave me Dumbfounded and Thunderstruck,
How can you have Such Incredible Luck!

Why oh why dost Thou on mine Battery Piss
and Hope I doth not see your Astutely Insidious Underhandedness?
Thou dare'st come Wam Bam sit right under my Nose
and Unshamefacedly keep up your Neat Little Pose
Admirable in your Sly and Stealthy Way
You force me into this Battlesome Fray

At first I was quite Delirious with thy Heavy Hand numbing my Skull
I could not believe that You Vile Creature could make me so Positively Dull
When I discovered that It wasn't due to Lack of Concentration
I fell into a Quagmire of Dire and Dreadful Desperation
I stood up from my Bed, the Anger licking at my Spit
Arrrrggh, come what may, I have to climb out of this Slippery Dark Pit!

By now I knew for Certain and Without a Shadow of a Doubt
- In Great Earnestness I gave an Inflamed and Vehement Shout -
that I must refuse to be His Damned and Docile Slave
And by mine Own Reason and Wit should step away from his Encumbering Cave
As much as He tries to keep up with his Plotting and Scheming
I will Tenaciously keep Scribbling, and Beware, I will do it Screaming!

- Lara Kirsten