Summertime! Outdoor dining! Juicy burgers! Vegan hot dogs! Ketchup and mustard everywhere!

Let's face it, we're in the middle of another heat wave, so let us embrace it with some eating of foods in the outdoors.

So, this Poetry Friday, a'cooking we will go with Peter Richardson's "Cloud Puffs above a Ridge-top Barbecue Grill" (from Bit Parts for Fools).

And yes, we've got beer for everyone this time. 

Well, it's summer, and the heat has not abated hereabouts. In fact, our air conditioning unit has asked for an air conditioning unit.

On days, like this, all you want to do is curl up in the dark and the cool, maybe at a movie theatre, maybe in your home equivalent, and wait the heat out.

So this Poetry Friday, let's go to the flicks, with Kay Burkman's "You & Your Late Movies" (from Champ).

You bring some beer. We've got the popcorn. 

Maybe it's the summer heat. Maybe it's because of the recent nomination of Jan Wong's Apron Strings for the 2018 Taste Canada Awards. Maybe it's because it's nearly dinnertime when this post is being prepared, and we're very hungry.

Whatever it is, we've got food on the brain. We cannot think of anything else.

Except poetry! Because it's Poetry Friday!

So let's combine our love of poetry with our need of sustenance with Patrick Warner's tasty, mouth-watering "The Chocolate Chip Pancake is Innocent" (from Perfection). 

If you're like us, right now you're holed up inside, praising the inventor of air conditioner.

By which we mean, it's very, very, VERY hot outside right now.

To take your mind off the prospect of walking across the surface of the sun on the way home, today's Poetry Friday entry has been specially chosen to give you a lot to mull over while you melt into the concrete.

Please enjoy Gary Geddes' intriguingly titled "Mahatma Gandhi Refuses an Invitation to Write for Reader's Digest" (from Active Trading).

Are you planning a Canada Day celebration? Can we come?

No?

Well, we'll provide you with some poetic summer imagery anyway, just because we're good like that.

Please enjoy Robert Gibbs' "Summer In With Goodness and Mercy" (from The Tongue Still Dances). 

Summer In With Goodness and Mercy 

This day's event   The word
surely crosses my mind   No

I've dandled you too long
worm not to spin you away

uncrushed (to trot yourself back
on all those feet is doom enough)

What's to come?   That's not
the question but what to make of all

this blue   this daylight   Aha
the fledgeling swallows dip

and crackle at the cat harrying her
the more the more she spits

They're showing off to their mother
how well they can do it   fall just short

of the murderous deft cuffings
This heat   these shadows

my own among them squat
under my chair   the sumachs and the triple

prickled thistles thorns and raspberries
drink light   Suppertime

a breeze   everything moves   birds from
everywhere their six callings

crowd one another then as suddenly
none   Someone's on my neck

You again or your wife-to-be looking
for a like reprieve?   fat blue-lit

overdue for sleep   see you've talked
me into talking and I flip you off

unsquushed another year's raid
between the two of you

O watch my shadow grow
Surely

that word again
flies in and out