Stalk phrases

broad leaves red and green,
sour stocks in springtime sky,
I scream for rhubarb!

Rhubarb, your such an odd weed
Your taste is unique, very cool
No one thinks of you as feed
Until the first chew, its like falling backwards into a pool

If your rhubarb plant could only speak
This is what it would say—
“Use this harvesting technique
So I increase from day to day:
Don’t cut with knife that’s sharp or dull
(This is known in ancient lore)
Grab stalk by stalk at the base and pull
And soon I’ll grow some more.

My vibrant rhubarb, you inspire me to write.
How I love the way you grow, thrive and stand,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about where you are in the land.

Let me compare you to a sunny Tuesday?
You are more dreamy, pleasant and fine.
Skilled breeze flaps the pleasant dancers of May,
And the springtime has the ideal punchline.

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love your freshness, texture and taste.
Thinking of your scent fills my days.
My love for you is the red aftertaste.

Now I must away with a bursting heart,
Such as you burst through the soil metres apart.

Mischief of youth
Purloined fruit snatched in haste
Alas, rhubarb

I am Rhubarb

No love
Ignored
A weed?
No
Sweet and tangy
To be adored
Please love me

Rhubarb. I put my shoes on back to front to step into the past, sent my watch by express mail to make the time go fast Rhubarb. My husband bought a little treat, A favorite thing I love to eat Rhubarb Pie. Oh for a taste of rhubarb pie! And Get one than Thats a New Day!!

Rhubarb can be sweet
Just add the sugar and BOOM!
It is VERY sweet

Pink, sour rhubarb
A little sugar sweetens
Leaves are poisonous

Rhubarb is so good
Like ice cream and gummy worm
I adore rhubarb!

rhubarb as a child
spring sticks dip in sugar cloud
sweet crunch tart again

Sweet stalks your garden
How does that rub your rhubarb?
Spring’s promise is tart

Tart and tangy and a little bit ‘zangy’. Mixed in with cream, makes a frozen dream.

Spring is here at long last,
Oh to break my rhubarb fast!
Stalks of succulent green and red
Used to grace my garden bed ,
Gone now to fate unknown
All the rhubarb I have grown!!

I rue the day
rhubarb came my way

when people ask “what is the reason?”
I simply state: “too short a season”

My bitter leaf; large and broad
stalk so red and sweet
Children to their mother’s arms wide
running, laughing to enjoy a treat
Cooling on the window I’m
baked in a pie the children greet
Dad is home from the hunt
his skill provides the family’s meat

Early bird songs wake the day
and lilac on the air
the broad rough leaves are creeping
beyond my neighbours yards

This first plant I could allot
warms me with vibrant reds
And it’s hearty strength bares on
when all else in the plot has withered

I can’t help being heartened
that such a tart anything
could be so dearly cherished

Spring’s first offering
Stocky, leafy, red and green
Tart, delicious treat!

A rhubarb haiku
Has seventeen syllables:
Five, seven and five

Rhubarb rhubarb rhu-
barb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.
Am I being clear?

Rhubarb, the first to rise this droughtful spring,
struggles up through drowsing ground weeks
before annuals even learn their names.

Driven out of formal gardens, its red periscopes
live rough in lanes, spread to vacant lots,
occupy sketchy alleys.

Rhubarb’s a thriver, her scalloped skirts flap
wider than a road, surpass neighbour weeds.
Desperate to be noticed, she pays her way
in leafage.

The odd gardener relents, chews and spits
a stalk or two, chops and cubes, sugars sauce.
There are never any takers.

Rhubarb the Artefact, housed in Gem jars, waits
in cellars, labels pasted on in a ghost aunt’s hand,
the day, the month, the year of preservation.

Rhubarb triggers up from a root
Into a stalk and a poison leaf
By the shade of cement a cavern grows
just in the spot beneath
where rhubarb rises against cement
and pushes it up unimpeded
In a wrong of land littered and sand
A germination lifts for its life undefeated

Rhubarb is awesome. Rhubarb can be sour. Rhubarb is a vegetable.

Rhubarb is the king
It can be used in anything
Rhubarb is pink and green
It is better then a bean
You can eat it with frozen custard
That’s way better than with mustard
You can get rhubarb ice cream at the Merry Dairy
Like ice cream with crumbled berry
Now that is the end of my poem
Now go have some for yourself everyone.

See rhubarb ice cream
Sweet and tasty as I eat
Love rhubarb ice cream

Pink, fleshy, edible stalks fill my heart of dreams, as the perennial dances in the spring.

When raw it’s very sour, but with some sugar on the cooker, it’s lovely sweet and sour.

Crisps and crumbles, pies or tarts it tastes supreme especially in merry dairy ice cream!

Distinguished Queen of Summer Crumbles
Tart and sweet, you are a heavenly delight
Canes dipped in dazzling sugar, maple or honey
Whatever the choice, I won’t grumble

Beneath your leafy canopy, hidden gems stretch upward
Refusing to be dwarfed by others
Harvesting doesn’t wilt your spirit or smother
You come back every year with profuse bounty for this Bard.

Who knew you’d be in such demand
Worthy enough to be precious currency in 2021
No savings plan, simply to share and nourish everyone
That’s what The Merry Dairy commands

Don’t fret, I’ll be the guard-on-watch
Ensuring Ori doesn’t mulch your glorious patch!

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb
Anticipatory ruby stalks.
Roses you are not.
Peaches you are not.

But every May, near Mother’s Day
your feisty fronds out front present.
3 more days, 2 more days,
You pump and pump and pump.
Mmm, mouth watering feature
long awaited Spring Feast.
Rhubarb cordial, rhubarb tea
and a single tall tart branch
to crunch and crunch and pucker-up

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb
Your ruby stalks are here!
We wait a little longer
Sweet Pie dreams of your so soon coming out.

Paper cups of sugar
Ragged red stalks, sweet and tart
Laughter of children

Rhubarb for you
Rhubarb for me
It tastes so good
It makes me go weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Somebody was talking about Guy Fawkes
Underneath the bridge beside the old locks
Standing in the weeds and the rhubarb stalks
They needed redemption
A sugar intervention

Everybody ready to draw their last breath
Vowing they would follow the cursed Macbeth
Underneath that bridge they would all meet Death
By rhubarb pie
The only way to die

Barb was gone this morn
Rue your leafy broken stem
Summer love squandered

spelling mistakes are forever
like Rubaiyat, for
Omar Khayyam’s Rhubaiyat

Mary Dairy you are so mary you make my day so nice with your ice cream is the best I love your merch and I love your ice cream and I also really like rhubarb.I hope I win.😍😍😍

i love rhubarb its good for us and you and you make good ice cream

Rhubarb, how we do love thee. its stem is green,pink crimson red and has a delicious taste! used in ice cream yes it is, has a tart taste but is perfect for cake! mix it with berries and scream! how delicious, how delicious it is!

Rhubard is healthy
Vitamin C and Fibre
A good ice cream treat

Magical rhubarb
Just right tartness, marries sweet
Creates perfection

rhubarb, i am
what some would call
a wink-wink tart
a taste of
spring youthful
for a tired winter heart
tread lightly dear
too much of me, and
you will ride the sirens
all doubled up
needing a jump start

great fruit flavour
sweet and sour at the same time
hurray for rhubarb

In October we steal tires to burn for Fawkes
Easy pickings round town—most front yards
Just dig sites of dinosaur trucks
Parts and bones rusting in rain and fog.

In May we raid rhubarb from Mrs Parsons,
The Coombs, old lady McCarthy.
Jumping fences at midnight, skulking like cats
cutting stalks we shove down our shirts and pants.

The jolt as lights flick on
The bark of the dog; the salt gun, potato gun
I’ve called the cops on ye yelled at our running shadows.

Panting, clapping each other’s jean-jacket backs
We pile our theft at Fern Street woods
Grab a stalk and bite into the sour cords
none of us like but fishhook our mouths
with lures of youth, of dares, to be worth
A story.

Rhubarb, we do love thee. its stem is green,pink,crimson red and tastes delicious! has a tart taste but is perfect for cake! mix it with berries and scream! how delicious, how delicious it is!

Mary Dairy you make my day mary.you have delicious ice cream and I love your ice cream and so so good.I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream.😍😍😍

The rhubarb is tart
Stalks are green, pink, crimson red
Perfect for ice cream

Rhubarb, how we love thee.its stem is green,pink,crimson red and taste delicious! it has a tart taste but is perfect for cake! mix it with berries and scream! how delicious how delicious it is!

sweet or sour bitter or weird pink green crimson red every color Makes Me glad I’m glad you chose someone who wins and I hope they get to have Mary Dairy ice cream You Make Me Mary Mary Dairy ice cream you make me scream and I make you scream and we all scream for ice cream from the Mary Dairy

The rhubarb is tart
Stalks are green, pink, crimson red
Perfect for ice cream!

I put my shoes on back to front to step into the past, sent my watch by express mail to make the time go fast.

Oh rhubarb oh rhubarb how delicious you are oh rhubarb oh rhubarb you stand out from far. you are the king you make my heart ring I just want to scream because you make great ice cream but yes you have some fruity competition but being the best is your mission I might just have a few but I enjoy every chew how many hungry people do you feed? I never think of you as a weed. oh rhubarb I love you but what do I do I want more of you in my patch but my gardening techniques just don’t match. All the red and pinky green, it’s so extreme if I grow you in my garden I know I will win!! Oh yum yum yum I know you’re the tasty one. All the yumminess of rhubarb ice cream, now you know what I mean I love rhubarb ice cream and in my mind you make the best kind.

Some say the world will in fire,
Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

rosy beauty glows
tart and sweet waiting to wed
suddenly comes spring

Broad green leaves fan out
sheltering their shoots below
tart pink stalks, the gift of Spring

Grandmother rhubarb
Spreads ruby arms to hug clouds
While the worms cuddle dirt.

Unexpectedly
in my favourite cold treat
rhubarb is so sweet

Long red and green stalks;
The leaf is not what you eat.
First veggie of spring.

Although your ice cream contains plants,
You may need to get bigger pants,
Because adding rhubarb
Doesn’t take out the carbs;
Instead you must get up and dance.

I’ll start some by seed
It will be a long time, could be years, ‘til harvest sure
Grandma had some, so did Mom
Check your front porch, I had to divide mine
I put it in yesterday, in the luxury of the middle of the day
Glad to share
The rhubarb is over by the fence
Grass never grows there anyway
They don’t want to be crowded
How long will it take, do you think?
Some grow it by candlelight to make it sweeter
We saw a bird that we’ve never seen before
Black, with tiger-tail wings
Watch Murphy around the leaves. Cats too
Orange peel in the garden, dogs don’t like citrus
Pull, don’t cut, leave a third
Sour pink celery
Joy says, Let it stand with sugar and wait.

Oh sleekly sour stalks
of green-red-white,
Whose poisonous leaf
Hides bittersweet delight,
I wait with anxious yearning every year
For spring’s unfurled unfurling crisp reveal
I rue the day I felt your barb — and how —
But would not ever live without you now

He watered her rows as Rhubarista of Pleasure
He trafficked amounts of her body by moonlight as treasure
In defiance of rebar and the razors of law
He moved bundles unnoticed by mechanical claw
On the spine of horizons he followed the stars
The rhubarb was seasoned by shimmers of Saturn and Mars.

Pink, unctuous, gleaming,
Sweet and tart, garden sweetheart,
Spring dream of ice cream.

Caroline’s garden
Filled with rhubarb everywhere
Sour, sassy, red and green

My brother’s new fence:
Rhubarb patch takes root, split from
My overgrown garden

A lady of celery so sour and sweet
Her expanding sprouts spreading cracks in concrete
He named her Barbosa the goddess of pie
And her stalks in his garden soaked sun from the sky
In admiration of her he offered this speech
“No place is better than the place where I’m sipping
The sweet of Barbosa where my waist line is dipping.
Molten with strawberries in the crust of a pie
to the lobes of my brain and I crumble to cry.”
His melo-drama for pie was an opera at least
when the open containments were troubled by yeast.
He reached for a sentence through an insulin coma,
“If I’m blinded to blackness I’ll seek the aroma.”

Oh sleekly sour stalks
of green-red-white,
Whose poisonous leaf
Hides bittersweet delight,
I wait with anxious yearning every year
For spring’s unfurled unfurling crisp reveal
I rue the day I felt your barb — and how —
But would not ever live without you now

rhubarb bitter sweet, delicious with strawberries, tastes great in crumble.

Rhubarb ice cream yum
Merry Dairy has it now
Eat it all summer

Rhubarb, rhubard,
How I hate thee!
Rhubard, rhubard,
I much prefer ice cream you see..
Rhubard, rhubard,
Stalk, by stalk, you are to be uprooted…
Pull rhubard, tug rhubard,
Like the Klondike, you are ripe to be looted.
Oh rhubard, little rhubard,
Shush, be quiet, you’ll be fine, do trust me!

You’re on your way to Merry Dairy;
And that means more salted caramel for me!

Barb I love you
but for the sake of your life
don’t tell my wife
as there won’t be anything we can do

This is not a Rhu
because she’ll take a knife
and to my strife
cut you into a stew

Though I love pie
And tarts too
I don’t want you to die

I will try
And so should you
to keep our secret nigh

Bernie and Marlee went off on a frolic
In search of some ruby red stalks
They flittered and wandered
And helplessly floundered
Until they espied a hawk

They implored the hawk graciously
To please let them know
Where in this fine city
The ruby red grows

With his keen observation
He could see their vexation
At being mere mortals with limited vision
In this unusual pursuit of vegetation

His kindness prevailed
As he heard of their tale
of the need for rhubarb for the team
in the wink of an eye, he spotted a supply
so they could make their glorious ice cream

There once was a ‘Barb on my farm
Her stalks felt so nice in my arms
She turned a bright red
Was picked from her bed
And ended up in my mouth, sweet and warm.

The grass is still wet with dew
as I open the latch
to the garden patch
anticipating my breakfast stew

Your tartness is appreciated by few
but when I pick my morning batch
for me there is no match
reviving my fondness anew

If eaten raw
I blink my eyes
as my face frowns

But there is no flaw
to some’s surprise
when sugar helps it go down

Oh, ruby stalks!
Under-appreciated; tart.
Rhubarb: heart of spring.

I rued that barb, its capacious, mean leaves,
Its fleshy, tart trunks for pie or preserve.
My fears stemmed from stalks, albeit absurd;
At rhubarb’s raw forms, my taste buds would seize.
Though a base for wines or aperatifs,
Thoughts of the “pie plant” panicked my nerves.
For Rheum rhabarbarum I had no words;
Its beastly bite, my gustatory grief.
Then one day I, gladly rhubarb bereft,
Heard of rhubarb with ginger! Oh, that spice!
The Merry Dairy on air walked—so deft—
Cream couture clothed, sweet silk blended on ice!
Dairy dreams—and jams—that carry real heft!
Rhubarb Ginger Float Pie is the one I will slice!

There was a man named Eddy
What wanted Rhubarb aplenty
So he put on his boots
And planted some roots
And said: Hurry up! Grow already!

There was a girl named Marlene
Who had a wonderful dream
Let’s open a shoppe
And trade in red stalks
And make some rhubarb ice cream

Rhubarb
The colour of a ruby
The same colour as the feet of a red-footed boobie
With leaves of emerald green that do not like a scream!
Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.

Rhubarb is deep red
Ruby red good with sugar
Calm and attractive

Shocking pink, stretching
Sullenly towards the sun
Unyielding giants

What is this rhubarb
It has to do with Springtime
Maybe I’ll try it

Oh Rhubarb,
I have a question.
Please don’t take it the wrong way.
Why don’t people like you?
I know some do but why not everyone?
You really have a lot going for you.
And you’re versatile too.
Maybe you’re just misunderstood.
You’re sour.
Like really sour.
And your poisonous greens,
That’s a tough one.
But did you hear?
Gardening is cool now.
Canning too.
That is good for you.
But Rhuby,
You need new recipes.
I’m sorry but stewed rhubarb isn’t ‘Gram worthy.
You gotta be a bit flashy.
And throw in a couple of zingers like “plant-based” and “gluten-free.”
And you gotta make friends with the foodies.
They’ve got smartphones and recipe blogs.
And they’re so done with quinoa and kale.
If that doesn’t work,
Have you thought of a re-brand?
A new name maybe?
How about Pink Celery?
Kinda catchy, I think.
RhuBarbie?
Maybe a bit much?
We’re just brainstorming here.
Oh Rhuby,
I have full confidence in you.
You’ll figure it out.

Red as a ruby
Slightly tart and slightly sweet
You will love rhubarb!

There once was a vegetable so sour,
that it made my brother-in-law dour.
If sweet rhubarb could be,
content would be he,
and all would live happily every after.

Springtime unfurls leaves
Growing stringy stalks so tart
Smiling lips pucker
(Read in English & Estonian)

Hot evening walk cold chocolate
strawberry rhubarb
merry dairy time again