{"id":159,"date":"2006-05-20T23:44:44","date_gmt":"2006-05-21T03:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/05\/20\/supper\/"},"modified":"2014-10-02T21:43:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T01:43:38","slug":"supper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/05\/20\/supper\/","title":{"rendered":"supper"},"content":{"rendered":"

I believe this piece is going to undergo a few changes in the next little while<\/em>. I notice a few things I would like to reconsider . . . Edit 1 May 21, 2006\u00a0 Edit 2 Oct 2, 2014
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

pot roast peas carrots and potatoes
\nwith onions and dumplings<\/p>\n

like a sinuous dancer and her retinue on a familiar tour of the rooms
\nthe scent of simmered beef, sweet carrots, celery and onions
\nand something else, something musky-bitter
\nslowly insinuated itself through the busy kitchen
\nout to the livingroom with its slip-covered furniture and slowly ticking clock
\npast the warm chrome and blue steel coal-fired stove
\nthe photos on the tables the chipped figurines on the high places
\nsniffing out the time-beiged textured flowered wallpaper
\nnosing up the scuffed chipped mouldings
\npadding up the wool carpet runnered stairs
\nslithering around the simple square bannister spindles
\nghostly flowing along the short dark corridor
\nswirling through each rectangular invitation into
\nmy sister’s room and mine her door slightly ajar showing
\ndried palm fronds on pastel pictures of the saints in guilty gilt frames
\nthen through mine half open investigated rumpled clothes behind my door
\ntoday’s practice sweatshirt, jock and socks handkerchief
\nand over to my nose my hungry nose reluctant nose
\ndown the olfactory passages up the sensors into the brain
\npenetrating the image of the thing swaying in the kitchen near
\nour mother silently looking over her sagging shoulder at the timer ticking
\nslowing turning on its temporal spit roasting in its hell flames
\nturning towards the culmination when all crimes officially
\nwould be forgotten while homework stacked on my desk on hers
\nhad our brains on automatic listening for the creaking stairs
\nthe stumble the door closing the long drilling of pee into the toilet
\nthe interminable squeaking of floorboards outside the closed door or not<\/p>\n

the raised invocation to the cloisters for penance before meals
\nimages of the saints all curvy females roasting saucily on spits
\nover fires in the Colloseum before the rollicking mob of Rome
\nwrithing sensually in rags ripping as we all watched
\nin fascination as more and more lovely nubile flesh expose
\na thigh a shoulder the side of a breast a nipple a beseeching
\neye I would rescue her run through the screaming mob leap into the
\narena kill the lions break the chains that spread her thighs
\nand yes yes yes the area just below her softly curving belly yes yes yes
\nuh supper sure be right there (quick a handkerchief)<\/p>\n

In the chapel the table is spread with our simple meal
\nboiled buttered chunks of ah turnip stewed potatoes onions
\ncarrots celery I have a piece of bay leaf still hard after all that
\ndumplings puffy pungent hot chewy peppered salted gravied
\nwe shall give thanks for this meal your mother has prepared
\nand the pope of Himself yawn on about the wonderful mother
\nmeal that we would have helped her with if he hadn’t sent us to
\nour rooms for whatever was still standing over his shoulder
\nand looking over ours as he stared at my sister’s pimples
\nand ordered her to wash her face you digust me.<\/p>\n

There is a place in hell
\nits name is detail
\nits name is picayune
\nits name is clarity of cruelty
\nits name is dread<\/p>\n

Out and down in the arena saint sweet innocence writhes spread saucily naked
\nin chains for our viewing and eating pleasure
\nI envy her that she has earned pity, admiration, martyrdom
\nwe know she has suffered we admit that being ripped apart does it
\nshe is the genesis of a million masturbations that reenact the mob’s
\ndelerium let’s throw away another life for fun down more roast beef
\nswill a beverage run through the streets ram our cars into our aircraft into
\nlet’s run riot let’s get rid of let’s yes yes yes yes yes<\/p>\n

but oh my sister what happened to you a frown an unkind word huh
\nthere are no marks on skin but deep inside the fist of wroth
\nhas started yanking kneading separating the tender flesh
\nand preparing the yellow festered malignancy that is to come
\nthat will drive each of us in turn into hospitals and desperation
\noh do not let them see you cry, but you and I may weep
\nand die a little at a time in private lamentations in our separated cells
\npot roast peas carrots and potatoes
\nwith onions and dumplings
\nlet us give thanks to Thee O Lord<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I believe this piece is going to undergo a few changes in the next little while. I notice a few things I would like to reconsider . . . Edit 1 May 21, 2006\u00a0 Edit 2 Oct 2, 2014 pot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4132,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/4132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}