Untitled Document

Trying to guess the recipe for Lizzie's garden pickle

Did you first dance naked before an altar to Isis?
Then add in the sweetness of a first summer's crush?
Did you line-up with Prometheus and steal fire from the gods
then steep-in the heat from a veiled bridal blush?

Did you zest a blood sunset? Marinade a moon?
Did you throw-in some fear from Etna's hot flows?
Did you add in for crispness a glacial morning?
Then colour it with amber, with a sack of gamboge?

Did you season with awe, with the soul-searing Sahara?
Did you texture it with tales of Old Rajastan?
Did you sprinkle it with whimsy, a whiff of mortality,
then lob in that clay from which God first made man?

Did you boil it on the forge of flame-loving Vulcan?
Then simmer and simmer for an Aeon or two?
Did you snatch it with Persephone from the gates of Hell?
Did you smite it, Excalibur, until it rang true?

Or is it, as you say, as you shrug off my question:
"I takes a pot, some slop, the next thing ta chop....!"
Which just goes to show, that the secrets of artistry
are a mixture of madness, license and luck.

Return to Poetry Homepage

Website http://www.gavinstewart.net
E-mail: Send an e-mail to the author