Taco-Mania
For the inaugural Friday Writings at Poets and Storytellers United (no more Writer's Pantry or Weekly Scribblings, they've been melded into one with an optional prompt), I went with the prompt, albeit quite unremarkably! A haibun, but not. In other words, a paragraph and a 5/7/5 that is not a haiku. Nor is it a senryu. So, it's that "everything else" form zappai! Can it still be called a haibun then? 🤷
Also, the first Tuesday of the month over at Tanka Tuesday is Poet's Choice. My choice is a... um... prose/zappai, of the Taco Tuesday sort!
Friday Writings prompt: "...write poetry or prose about food: cooking it, eating it, sharing it, craving it, dreaming of it … the choice is yours."
I like tacos as much as the next person does. They’re really a perfect food, completely customizable. Beef or chicken, both or neither. Pile on the veggies and cheese, or leave them naked. Sour cream with a side of chips and salsa. Or chips and guacamole. Even guacamole with a side of guacamole would work! While I’ve never stopped at any of the many city taco trucks, I do enjoy the aroma wafting my way at the stoplights. Now though, I'm beginning to wonder, has this taco popularity thing become taco-mania? Has taco love gone so far overboard as to include the pets? Mickey’s favorite dog treats are tiny tacos. The cats have catnip and silvervine stuffed fish tacos and hot sauce. I bought a squeaky dog toy salsa “bottle” just yesterday! Is this taking it too far? I say, not at all!
join your pets for lunch
tacos, salsa optional
mine chicken, cat’s fish
©2021 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved
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| cat toy filled taco truck - Dollar Tree |
I think if it's a haibun it must include a haiku. But Westerners have invented a form known as tanka prose which replaces the haiku with a tanka, so I think you could call this zappai prose. Enjoyable to read, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's got something syllabic at any rate!
DeleteI love tacos until I accidentally jap a sharp, crusty part into one of my gums. I think this experience is what will keep tacomania from achieving total dominance.
ReplyDeleteOh, I can imagine that too well! Ouch!
DeleteI wholeheartedly join the ranks of "Taco Lovers Forever" ... never too many varieties. Though the Fish Taco I had for dinner Monday evening ranks right up there. Love your response to the foodie challenge.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much a fan of fish. Maybe it's my lack of knowing how to cook it. I don't think my mother did well with fish either.
DeleteTacos are great but a hot sauce squeaky toy seals the deal!
ReplyDeleteIt is SO cute! Mickey loves it too. I couldn't get it to squeak and thought the tag was wrong, but he managed to work it.
DeleteLoved your haibun. I'd write more, but I'm rushing out to buy tacos!!!!
ReplyDeleteHa! Thanks!
DeleteI love your "haibun, but not". Playing with forms is always a delight. And you made this particular piece a true delight.
ReplyDeleteI also think that one can never go too far with tacos, and if you ask your dog or your cat they were certainly agree.
I haven't had tacos in a very long time. I think your poem has inspired me to break the taco fast. I'm thinking some homemade corn tortillas and the meat I cut from the bones I just got for bone broth. My taste buds are already getting ready for the party!
Yum, homemade tortillas! I've only made flour ones. Bone broth. I know it's all everyone mentions these days, but I just can't "do" it. I buy nice ones for Mickey to chew, but marrow just turns my head. My grandmother used to roast bones and spread the marrow on bread. I like my broth plain and clear and out of a can or box! Yours is probably delicious.
DeleteYay. I love that you added pictures. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for appreciating that! I like seeing photos on blogs, so add them to mine wherever can, and I look for a way if there isn't an obvious way.
Deletei have never been a fan of tacos, taco salad, sure. for me taco shells defeat the point putting food in between two "things" for the purpose for eating with our hands... too messy, i always order the taco salad instead. and the oversizes burritos at chipotles, so big they just fall apart as you eat them and go everywhere, i get mine in the bowl instead. i'm just not coordinated enough to operate modern food treads =) enjoyed your haibun, and love those chew toys, that's great!
ReplyDeleteI like the meat and toppings on salad too. I usually make my own chips from tortillas and nibble on those as I make them, so don't need the extra. Tacos are definitely messy!
DeleteHaibunilicious.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ron!
DeleteI love tacos, I can remember the first taco I ever ate. It was at a drive in restaurant (??) in El Paso. I didn't even know what one was until that day. Several other food items are that way too. I like reading your like for them. Next time we/I go shopping, I will look for the "cat toy filled taco truck" at the Dollar Tree down from Walmart.
ReplyDeleteBut since I now have an upper appliance I haven't had one, not even corn chips. I can't chew them good enough and so they scratch my throat or get stuck there. I do think that I can eat a soft taco and will try one soon.
I have another spine poem, I call it as Senryū but perhaps I have missed a rule. I will post it soon, I hate to have them stack up. Most days I go to the library I try to compose one.
..
What an amazing memory! I remember my first Taco Bell, I was at least 30! It was a family joke whenever we drove by the one in our town for my father and I to joke, "No one at Taco Bell," because the parking was always empty. It was sort of a thing not to go. Then, a friend took me and "ruined" that, but my dad was gone by then, so he never knew.
DeleteIt's hard to find tacos over here, perhaps at some specialist restaurant only. The closest to a taco is perhaps the KFC zinger pockets. Or our local spring rolls and curry puffs.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading your delightful poem. :)
Interesting, I never thought of how tacos weren't everywhere. Figures they wouldn't be. I am not familiar with KFC pockets, so looked them up. The tortilla is a soft one, more like I'd use for fajitas or soft tacos. Baked Curry puffs are new too. Minus the curry they sound similar to Cornish pasties.
DeleteI love this Zappai. I'd call it a Haibun myself, but I'm not a purist.
ReplyDeleteZappai is a new term for me and I'm glad to learn it. There used to be a dreadful know-it-all who would hover around my poetry blog hoping to chide me about this, that, or the other. Now that I have Zappai in my arsenal, I will zap all future know-it-alls with this fine defense.
Yes, zappai is a great one to stick everything 5/7/5 that doesn't fit the rules for the other forms! I learned about it last year doing A to Z poetry forms in the A to Z Bloggers Challenge. I like what Writer's Digest says about them, "Zappai poems are like haiku, but not. Or maybe more appropriately, they're like senryu, but not (or maybe they are)." and "... zappai are all those haiku people write that haiku poets recognize as not being haiku."
DeleteI read the haibun/zappai as a command most of all except no four-legged companions to share.
ReplyDeleteThen you'll have to eat for two!
DeleteHow fun! Tacos really are incredibly customizable.
ReplyDeleteAren't they? No fussing over who likes what, just add things on at the table.
DeleteThank you. I may take you up on that offer if my son doesn't get the time to help!
ReplyDelete