Diets of the Poets

  Did Tu Fu like tofu?

Did Li Po like Congee?
Or was Bao his go to
when he got the munchies?

Did Basho like Miso
all fragrant and steamy?
Did Issa like Shiso
beside his Sashimi?

Did Homer eat fruit on
the wine-dark Agean?
Did Ovid eat gluten
Was Virgil a vegan?

Lucretious get speechless
about Provolone?
Did Petrarch love peaches
with sweet Mascarpone?

Did Milton eat Stilton?
Did Chaucer eat Chesire?
Did Dante eat Comté
on his French adventures?

Did the Bard eat Swiss Chard
down in Stratford on Avon?
Or is that a canard,
and in fact it was Bacon?

Verlaine, Quiche Lorraine?
and Michaux, Cote de Veau?
Baudelaire, Camembert?
and Rimbaud, Brie de Meaux?

Did Rilke pour milk
over his bowl of Meusli?
Did Heine drink wine, if
not nightly, then usually?

Did Pushkin get pushy
about his Pelmeni?
Nor Lermontov share some of
His Borscht? Not any?

Did John Keats love Pomme Frites?
Lord Byron, Ceviche?
Did Shelley love Delis?
Did Wordsworth eat Pizza?

Did Yeats enjoy Dates?
Oscar Wilde an espresso?
Tennyson, venison;
Ed Poe his pesto?

Dickenson, sticky buns?
Longfellow Jello?
Whitman, love sippin’ on
cold Limoncello?

That’s the riddle I’ll pose, although death’s not confessing,
Who ate what no one knows. They have left us all guessing.

But no balladeer breathes that’ll question my doggerel.
Find it all unbelievable? Well, perhaps some food-blogger will!