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Fried Egg

by Jibunnessa 

Posted: 04 April 2003
Word Count: 157


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How do you like your fried egg?
Sunny side up
Or runny?

Do you like to burst the yoke open
With a neat piece of toast,
Tearing the membrane
That shields
the yellow river
That floods
its banks
And runs onto
The ceramic
of your plate?

And what about pepper?
Crunchy
Or fine?
Spraying particles
Into your nostrils,
Bringing tears
to your eyes
And an uncontrollable sneeze,
While your mouth
Shoots its fine salival contents
To be caught
By the palm
of your hand.

Or are you a ketchup freak?
Large dollops of red
Playfully splodged
Before smothering it in bread
And biting through the layers
Of comfort
and familiarity.

Or are you,
like me,
a fan
of crispy?
Brown
Singed
Lightly at the edges?
No sunny side up
Or potentially leaking rivers
Just a precarious
process of turning
too early
For fear of burning
Before the bonds
have developed
As I’m left scraping
The stranded pieces
From total obliteration
Adding salt to the wounded parties
And wondering
Whether
To walk away
Silently
As cold creeps in
And the impossibility of resolution
Overtakes the air.

Or take mouthfuls
In a risky spoon
And see
Where it takes me.


---Jib, 9.10pm, 02 Feb 03






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Comments by other Members



Anna Reynolds at 18:23 on 04 April 2003  Report this post
Like the use of metaphors here-- very apt and topical. It's hard hitting and the last chunk especially intriguing. Gorgeous.

Jibunnessa at 18:34 on 04 April 2003  Report this post
Once again, thanks for your considered and enthusiastic comments. I'm glad you like the metaphors.

Hilary Custance at 13:02 on 11 April 2003  Report this post
I loved this poem. Apart from the larger implications and the amazing language, I love the way you have homed in on the details of this human need for some things to be just so. It is crazy, but true, that people will care as much, and get as much pleasure and pain from, the specific state of their fried egg as their love life or bank balance.

roger at 21:33 on 12 April 2003  Report this post
If I'd been asked to write about an egg,I'd have said,'Err..sort of oval shaped...umm...sometimes white sometimes brown...err...umm'

So it's as well that I don't (can't!) write poems, and you do.

Eggcellent (Sorry about that!)

Jibunnessa at 19:12 on 15 April 2003  Report this post
Glad you think the poem's eggcellent (nice one! I like it). And I'm chuffed that you think the language amazing Hilary. Thanks. I think it is true that we humans are such creatures of habit and sometimes feel very passionately about the exact texture and smell of something. I won't really comment on the other layers of metaphore and the larger implications of the poem. But, I'm glad you like it.

poemsgalore at 18:56 on 30 July 2003  Report this post
God I'm starving now, anybody got an egg and bacon sarnie? Great poem, had me salivating over my keyboard - I'm not fussy, I'll eat mine anyhow.

Ellenna at 19:01 on 30 July 2003  Report this post
God, this is completely scrummie!!

Ellie

Jibunnessa at 21:28 on 30 July 2003  Report this post
Hi Kathleen, hi Ellie.

Cheers guys :) Glad you liked the poem. Hope your keyboard recovered Kathleen.

Cheers,
---Jib

PantsonFire at 20:37 on 31 May 2006  Report this post
this is really good


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