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Poeme Indo-Chine
Nicola Easthope

Serves: the masses

Ingredients:


1 cup plain observation
1 cup wholemeal feeling
1 kernel of truth, grated
500g dry perspective
1 cup distilled water
1 central motif, to bind
2 personifications, shaved
1 central character, crushed
1 dspn metaphor or simile, whichever is in the cupboard
a little alliteration
a lot of assonance
essence of sibilance
dash of repetition

pun to taste

Serve with deep sleep leftovers and pining nostalgia (organic if possible).

Method:

Sift your plain observation and wholemeal feeling into a warmed porcelain bowl, made in an exotic South East Asian country you have visited in the last five years. Carefully grate your truth, blend with dry perspective and sprinkle with economy.
Gently beat the central motif, crush the character and shave the personifications into a silver bowl, mined from the mountains of the Black Hmong hill tribe. Add distilled water – always water, and be thankful you have got it – to help your poem flow.
Fold all into the porcelain bowl, swapped for your lavender essential oil as the young Vietnamese woman had a headache, adding the remaining taste dashes in judicious measure.
Knead with love, until the raw poem is resilient to the touch.
Leave covered, at room temperature, for at least five days so that fermentation can yield optimal culture.
Roll out onto recycled, chlorine-free rice paper and bake in an earthen oven at red-sun Fahrenheit.

Garnish with leaves of indigo and serve immediately to the beggar outside the booking office. Share the rest until all are fully satisfied.

Carry the aftertaste to the next làng. Sleep it all off. Awake at dawn and begin again.

 

làng: village

 

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