Hunger

1

Right here, right now
on the lavender sack
by the olive trays

a scoop of olives
for your mouth
and goat's cheese for your thighs

let me
lie down with you
in the havoc of the market . . .



2

Because you gust through the room
making things occur,

the fruit to fly from the fruit bowl
and the furniture to quail,

because the olives are all over
and the meal

may never recover,
tonight's outpost

of the empire of laughter
invents a ceremony:

the orange touch, the olive kiss,
the lying down, it seemed forever,

in juiced rain and lavender storm



3

Cry Hunger, Hunger
silencing the vendors, causing

the buyers to stare. Such
havocs of tenderness

wreak there
spices will fly, lavender rain

on the city,
the sky grey with November,

the heart with old anger.
With tang, with colour

baffle them, bless them,
and the sound of laughter.

-- Peter Sirr