the soup oracle

from my tea table book of poetry, here’s a poem i wrote many years ago. it’s neat to see that eventually i did ask the oracle what it meant …

read the soup last night
12 midnight
was good
good hot soup in the fall
few days before new moon

read the soup and the soup said
“i’m your noodle oracle -
mamma mamma,
hear you cry mamma”,
the noodle soople oracle said to me
“mamma mamma,
hear you cry mamma”
and i nodded to the noodles -
reluctantly, i dare say,
but i noddled, yes,
covered in lavender sports coat over beige lady outfit
cause it was starting to get cold
12 midnight
a few days into fall -
but the soup was good and hot.

a few days before new moon
the noodle pasta ooracle said
furthermore
- as i slurped -
“listen, between those wafts
of monosodium glutamate fogs
rising up from my steaming body,
listen, i can feel
you
the eater of my noodle essence
longing for more warmth
than my hot liquid can ever give you.
i can see you yearn
for softer softness
than my white dough even though
it caresses, traverses, mushingly, over your lips and tongue -
and no one noodle, gliding down inner throat into
the depths of your sad, weeping stomach
can fathom the ravine of your soul
- needing more, needing more -”

there i stopped.
i stop now.
do i want to hear more, noodle oracle?
do i want?
do i?

and yes
the moreness of my hungry, driven soul
lifts its arms and says
“give me, soup, more of your nasty, disturbing
words
give me
more
as more is that which i always
want.”

so the soup says,
“see -
there’s more of me …
in other forms and other words …
i hear you cry mamma
pasta mamma pasta mamma
but mamma is gone
yet
there is more of me …
in other forms and other words …”

and i pretend
not to stand
not to under-stand
words
pasta oracle noodle words
i pretend
to be hungry for food …

until i can’t stand
i can’t stand
it no more.

that day
i will ask the pesky pasta oracle
what it is that it meant
and where it is that i can get
more
because i need more.

but not now.
my coat is warm.
my bed, waiting, soft.
and noodles, for now, cover that hungry soul within me.

(this poem was listed in december’s creative carnival)