#840 - kissing the soup

 

23.iv.22

840

3.113

kissing the soup

 

some echoes for Effie Carr

after reading Stamatia X

 

 

which came first?

hypnosis or the chicken?

 

it was the longing drove us

blindly

 

I am handed the bottle

and I throw it

 

like a word passed on from lip to lip

and now from the sudden fire

 

one may wish to live the simple present

 

there is a Greek word for everything

everything else

flames engulf

 

to practise the art of forgetting

 

a bird flies backwards

phoenix burns

 

many have sought to live in a book

in a suitcase

in a voyage

in a myth

 

every story told

is one way to stop the world

 

for a fancy dress equator

for instance

 

find the country and you find yourself

or it’s the other way

                         

which came first?

it was the longing

 

hunger haunts

in the classroom a hymn

but freedom’s not there

 

all pasts are imperfect    

                                       

ours is

a deep sea dive

no one sees the clock

no one hears the click of the lock

 

it was the longing

the under skin

and the skin itself

with me then you’re gone

 

some things are not even in words

 

past itself is another forever

struggle to not be whom I hate

 

blind sheep keep

the deep sob

and the lesser grief

 

pots and pans do their dance

avgolemono

to stop the egg

one must remember the kiss the soup

to not curdle

 

final words given

a meal survives

and the clock

 

remember the words

or the meaning is lost

 

all the spies are drunk

 

and here’s the god of survival

not a god at all

 

new dawn and the phoenix

the prehistoric eyes of a junta

their justice an art of theft

(as Plato’s Socrates has his Homer say

somewhere we forget)

 

it’s not a matter of intention

we make the present imperfect too

to live the continuous past

 

hymns again

as if held to the air

words deep in the page recall us

 

a sea inside where life is the vest

 

one is instinctively drowning

who’s breathing for me?

 

here’s the bottle, the rag, the match

here is the terror – blind throw

                                                 

fly back

 

return to nothing and nowhere

it’s how we become responsible

 

we have to have been sung

in a hymn

in the classroom

from under the skin

 

hunger is haunting

 

a golden boy burns

 

no story without Judas

the eggshells go chicken first

 

but we live in the simple present now

 

when the people aren’t afraid

 

you have to dress up for death

 

it’s how we clean the words

 

guess on to eternity

how we just happen to be here

 

remembering, before myself

and who I’m now to be