How Not To Make An Omelette (Break The Eggs)

Is it possible to really live a life without once breaking a heart?

It’s that time of the week again where I send you a random original poem. There’s been a bit of a theme this week of posts relating to food or drink, namely eggs, so I thought I would continue with the theme.

Here’s a poem (very loosely) about eggs. Sure.

This poem could be about anything. It’s not, it’s almost certainly about eggs. It’s also another in an unusually long line of poems in which I could be, in some ways, understood to be cooking myself, for whatever reason. There you have it!

Have a crack at reading it, and appreciate just how much restraint it took to only make one egg pun in amongst all of this preamble that no one is all that likely to read.

And there it is. How Not To Make An Omelette.

This poem covers a lot of ground in terms of subject matter & style. There’s the overlaying story of a chef trying to make an omelette, sure, and experiencing all the pressure & tension of the dish potentially going wrong even though it’s something seemingly so simple that we should all know how to cook it.

Four eggs walk into a bar… there’s the same pressure to combine ingredients as there is in conjuring a string of words, the heat of the moment as it passes with that window of joke opportunity quickly closing on you landing a punchline before it catches on the side of the pan, and of course, it’s a classic joke format, so the rhythm has to be perfect, it’s a merry little dance around the kitchen, hot on your toes, primed to deliver a perfect combination to the pass before final judgment, and serve. Hold for applause.

And finally, it’s a recipe for a family. The famous line from Phillip Larkin “they fuck you up, your Mum and Dad” rings through this poem and reminds us that we’re all just people playing roles in our lives, fucking up, covering up, and making the best of the next best situation. We need to stop ourselves from spinning the wheel. There is no longer any fortune to be had, and there are far too many gaps left on the board to make an educated guess. I say “Never Gonna Give You Up” to get a laugh from the audience. They don’t. It’s wrong. I knew that. You wouldn’t try for a strike on a lane with the hamster still in his ball. You can’t expect to put an animal out of its misery in a bowling alley in borrowed shoes, and not think for too long about how many fingers have clawed their way into your ball. The wheel is still spinning, and the lights are all flashing, my name is written on my little podium, all the zeros blur into 1s. I win! And my high school English teacher would kill me for saying this, but, then I woke up. Luckily, I woke up before he had the chance to catch me. In the waking world, he’s been dead maybe 12 years? I still can’t get over the fact that he was laid out in a wicker casket. I bet he’d love a “and then I woke up” ending now. It really would have livened up the wake.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

- This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin

Why is the responsibility to become self-aware & recognise the need for accountability starting now and having to be forcibly applied retroactively? Haven’t we got enough to do? The planet’s on fire! I’m gradually sifting dirt from out the bottom of my trouser leg and praying no-one notices they’re being micro-dosed. We can’t apply one session of therapy to an entire family tree, not with all these extra pieces falling from the branches at every available opportunity. We’ll have to cut it down and count the rings. Re-plant what’s left and see if it survives the winter on my kitchen windowsill between my Thyme & Rosemary plants, each lovingly labelled “Felicity Kendal” & “Pam Ferris”, respectively. What do I call the starter dough for a new way of living? I’m tempted by Audrey II, but I don’t really want to tempt fate, or accidentally end up over-referencing without feeling the guilt of not also providing a bibliography.

They say that time heals all wounds, but the one thing we are always running out of is time, we cannot just sit and hope to outlast our wounds. The only thing I have is thyme. And rosemary, obviously. But for the purposes of the joke… All this pressure makes it hard to breathe, and sustain life. How we end up is a mix of genetics and our environment, and in those early stages, for the most part, we receive both of these things from the same two people. And despite all of this, there’s nothing to stop us making our way out in the world. Broken or not.

So make sure the pan is screaming hot before you jump on in, else everyone will be able to hear your inner monologue go outer, screaming as you scrape through the world, one sore joint crack at a time. Take your pills and put your helmet on. Give yourself at least a week’s warning before attempting to get out of a chair. Three for an armchair. 4-6 working months for a beanbag of any dimensions. Add an extra month if it isn’t a decent thickset corduroy one. Also, factor in the time required to find new friends with better soft furnishings. I have corduroy beanbags in my living room, dispensing with the need for chairs altogether. My joints sound like kindling catching on an open fire. The smell of marshmallows is incidental.

Perhaps the poem isn’t about any of the above and you’ve just been duped into reading a second, thoroughly weird, much wordier, and altogether nonsensical ramble masquerading as “free verse”. How will we ever know? You’ll have to cut off my hair and check for lies.

I should probably speak less. Or write less. Or type less. Or.. less, anyway. We can at least agree on that.

Why exactly did four eggs walk into a bar?

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