“Know your onions” is what they say
how can you know something with so many layers.
Pauper’s Hotpot layers sliced onions, potatoes and bits of bacon
My parents gave me The Pauper’s Cookbook when I went to University
University does not teach you to cook onions but you may learn whilst there
recipes always say sweat onions until translucent but not the long care that takes.
Sweating it is the secret to life and the search for transparency
it takes what it takes to get there – a lifetime even…
Many unexpected things come to you in a lifetime
I found an album of Booker T including Green Onions in the middle of Brixton at 3a.m. and loved it ever since
Spring Onions are green and tender – it’s like eating onion babies
other colours are available – purple, white, brown – on the outside.
We grow new outside layers with each new age we reach
To “Know your onions” peel a person to the heart, layer by layer…
This poem was written in response to Melissa LeMay as guest over at the dVerse Poets Pub last night. I was very taken with the previous Poets Pub Challenge to write a Duplex poem – seven couplets where the baton of an idea, a sudden twist in each second line, is passed to the first line of the next couplet and although I have written in similar form here, I have relaxed the strictures of line length and I still can’t shape the form as being bluesy as it’s inventor talks about…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023