Sleepless in Chli

It took its toll on my eyes,
heated red it persists to add
to rights unheard of, not added
to recipes of disaster.
It wants for me to relax, to
break with a mind to sabotage
elements of beans, sheets,
sleep.

Yet, the winning was taken,
was eaten, was known for heat -
not from fresh means, but powder
it disturbed me - a lazy means
of entering the fray, the mess,
the blind albatross of soup.

The darkness, the grief, shadows
of happiness, joy, but missing
clues to the unconscious, the
night pulls on what? To where?
You were there in bed, but were
not at the latest dinner fiasco,
an emotion simmering beyond
twilight it persists, it meanders
past all reason.

It needs to be told, it needs to
be added to ingredients, this
stay of tomato, of mere hardship
whether perceived or wasted in
the moment, stirring, waiting
for dinner guests to be seated,
yearning for heavy eyes,
reconciled thoughts.

It was not long ago that a time of
simple chili held, posting itself
as content with life, with bean and
soup, a target of planned families
disturbing no one, with recipes
of disaster, with mystical powders
not giving in to imagined tastes,
powerless to change peppers or
reality, holding to the elegance
of steak, beef, tromping on
hamburger as a garnish.

It will shock the senses this -
an English garden run amuck,
linguini with sauce, fleeing for
safety in the more tangible,
the dish set in stone.
Not this as heat goes, it mocks
the bed, the disaster of the heart,
darkness of unspoken grief.

It’s not the burn, but the loss of
odds, the bookmakers are against
us as she persists in her weights
and measures.
Whether trivial or catastrophic,
unyielding, the squalid recipe,
the hands of crepes and biscuits and
other prizes bore when sided to
sleep or the chili pepper.

C 2014 Larry Ingram