Oh, My Tickling Tomato! Poem by AtreyaSarma Uppaluri

Tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable
Without it, is never complete our table
Ripe or unripe, it has its refreshing taste
A life without tomatoes is sheer waste

Countless are the sizes and shapes of the tomato unique
Just like the innumerable stars with their celestial mystique

With tomato there can be recipes and dishes of any number
As are the poems and posts in Muse India with no cumber

Tomatoes tickle your taste buds, cool or hot
The incredible tomatoes even when they’re rot
Are very valuable to throw them at the rotten lot

To the Telugus tomato appeals as much as their epic drama
Telugus have a very special place in their hearts for Lord Rama
They fondly have given a sacred name to tomato - Rama mulaga
With this divine attachment they on the tomato always go gaga

Tomato is a part of the wonderful world of romance
That’s why it is Love Apple from an aesthetic stance
A sweet attractive girl is called a Tomato
And this very thought raises your libido

Treating with a bowl of the juice of tomato
A girl can easily bowl over her inamorato

Rather than crotons or plants of show
Tomatoes in your metro pots do grow
Then let’s all create and follow the motto:
A tomato a day keeps you on your toe

“Only tomato” or “Something with tomato”
Should be our grateful and mealy manifesto
Now let me have an all-tomato treat, pronto…

[Dec 22,2009: : Lincoln, NE, USA]