Google Search: Can you eat a rooster?
Google Answer: Of course you can eat roosters. That is what people do with them. If they are young, you can fry or roast them. If they have a little age on them you make soup, or chicken and dumplings, or put them in the c(r)ock* pot.
*bracketed by the author.
To yield is to turn a thing, to turn it, turn it into meat, to yield is to turn it, turn it into something, into something to eat. To yield is to give in and offer up, offer up, offer up. To yield is to offer up wood: morning wood, and cross wood, and a table made of wood; to yield is to offer up a table, made of wood. A yield is an offering is a table, table made of wood, and it draws us in, draws us in and to itself, and us, drawn in, become a gathering, a gathering gathered, and gathering: a gathering of, returning to, gathering round and round around a round thing. To yield is to give in and offer up – it is dying, and the offer of a dead body, and fucking, to yield is fucking. To yield is to fuck and the fucking body giving in; it is grief and it is pleasure, and it is all of it, at the same time, all of it, fucking. To yield is to fuck is to turn and re-turn the word to the world of the living until the word is turned, and re-turned. A re-turn is a turning back, a re-turn back in, back into, into the world, a world where dying feeds a body, where dying is meat between thieves and the feeding of a body to another body, where dying draws a gathering, a gathering of, and we are, we are a gathering gathered, gathering round around the round thing, drawn in, we are a gathering gathered and turning into fingers, a gathering turned and re-turned to fingers, the fingers of my grandmother’s hands, each one of us turning into and returning, a turn back into hands, and we are hands, hands and fingers wrapping themselves around, and fingers, we are fingers clamping down (a clench): a clench is clenching, a clenching mouth-grip; of fingers, clenching themselves around the hard neck of a living thing.
A turn into becomes a re-turn, becomes a returning; a re-turn to round belly. A round belly turns; round belly turns, re-turns, and turns into an orange. An orange is orange, and orange, orange is red and yellow. Red and yellow, pleasure and grief, one turns into the other, and all re-turn, turn to orange, all at the same time. A turn into becomes a return: my grandmother’s fingers, hands full, hands gripping, a clench, surrounding the hard neck of a living thing, in the yard where we used to play when we were children. My grandmother’s fingers around the hard neck of a living thing, next to a pot of water, a round pot of water, and heat, wood on fire, in the yard where we used to play when we were children. Fingers, like a mouth, a mouth in a clench around the hard neck of a living thing, and a return to orange trees in the yard where we used to play when we were children. In the yard where we used to play when we were children, I am watching my grandmother, I am watching her there, sitting next to the pot of hot water, and she is getting ready, ready to turn, to turn a living thing to meat. A turn into becomes a re-turn. The hard neck of a living thing yields to a clenching of, yields to a clench; a clenching of fingers, a clench of fingers turning, turning orange, a curled re-turn to orange, a turn in, into a round thing, and every finger turns, every finger is turned until each one re-turns, returns to segment, rounding round and round, until the whole hand turns, and returns to orange, round and round, a round thing, an orange thing, an O thing, turning, and re-turning, and turning into O, like the oranges growing on the trees in the yard we used to play in when we were children. A turn into orange becomes a turn into O, becomes a red turn, and a yellow turn, and a re-turn to yield, a yield of pleasure and a yield of grief, and fucking – a turn into returns the body to fucking, turns it back a turn, to the return of you and me, a turn of you and a turn of me, and us turning and re-turning, turning into offerings, and orange, and fucking, and O.
O you, you drawn into O. O, the orange O, and you, offering up, offering up, offering up, and O you, you surrounded by O, the red and yellow of my (my O my) O, rounding round the hard neck of a living thing, and O yellow, and O red, and O is red and yellow, red and yellow, red and yellow: O is red and yellow fucking, pleasure turning into, grief turning back, turning and re-turning, all at the same time, and you offering up wood. O wherever, wherever and whenever your mother is, O your mother, your mother she needs to know O she needs to know O she needs to know: she needs to know her son is at the mercy, at the mercy of O! O (a clench!), a clenching of (O), O! a clenching O: (0) – the hard neck of your yields to a clench, a clenching of O, the O, clenched (0), and a clenching of, O of my O, turns back, back into orange segments, and orange segments, the orange segments turn, in turn, the orange segments turn and re-turn until they become a return of my grandmother’s fingers, my grandmother’s fingers, her fingers in a clench: a clenching of fingers, fingers in a clench, around the hard neck of a living thing, and in a clench, a hard neck is not hard anymore; my grandmother’s fingers, her fingers letting go, and the hard neck of a once living thing, not hard, not living anymore, sits limp, limply and limp-necked, it sits limply and limp-necked, in a pot of boiling water in the yard we used to play in when we were children. In the yard where we used to play when we were children, a dead cock sits, it sits limp, sits limply and limp-necked, like the body, the body of a son, it sits, it sits limp, limply and limp-necked like the son, the son of God, dead cock, dead cock, dead cock like the limp-necked body of the son of God pulled from a cross.
Pulled, and pulled across, a dead body draws a crowd, O a dead body draws a crowd, and it draws us, it draws us in. It draws us in, into a gathering, and we, we are, we are a gathering, a gathering gathered, gathering round and round, round and round around a dead body, and a dead body, a dead body pulled, pulled and pulled across, a dead body draws – it draws a crowd and offers up; it offers up, it offers up, a dead body offers up. To yield is to turn, to turn a thing, to turn it, turn it into, into something that offers up and O, a dead body turns, it turns to meat, to meat between thieves, and thieves, we are the thieves of hands and fingers, we are – we are our hands and fingers, and we are hands and fingers pulling, hands and fingers, pulling meat from the bones of a dead cock. O dead cock, dead cock between, and between, between our hands and fingers, we pick, we pick the dead cock clean.
Down to the bone, the bone yields – the bone gives in, gives in to offer up, offer up, offer up: the bone gives in to offer up a wood turn. Down to the bone, a wood turn turns into wood, turns and re-turns, re-turns the bone to cross, a cross made of wood; picked clean – cross bare, baring and bared – a bone is a wood cross up against an orange sky. Up against an orange sky, orange, orange is, orange is red and yellow, red and yellow, red and yellow sky: red turning into, yellow turning back, pleasure and grief, all return, and turn to orange, all at the same time. All at the same time, a turn into becomes a return, always returning, day in, day out. Day in, day out, and up against an orange sky, a living thing cocks and a living thing crows, it cocks and it crows the day in. Early riser (a rooster) – a rooster cocks and crows red and yellow, making them mo(u)rning sounds. Rooster (early riser), making them mo(u)rning sounds, and it draws you, draws you out; it draws you out of sleep, and you, you turn, you turn into, into someone’s son, and it turns, it turns into a re-turn, a return to yield. To yield is to give in is to offer up. Up against them mo(u)rning sounds, you turn, turn into a return, the return of a dead riser, offering up red and yellow, red and yellow, red and yellow: a turn, a turn re-turns, turning into morning; a turn, a turn re-turns a turn, into morning wood.
You can also watch a live performance of the piece below, from Dimitra’s appearance at ‘The Real Story: In the Half-light’ on 17/05/18, as part of the Not Quite Light Weekend 2018.
Dimitra Xidous is the author of the poetry collection Keeping Bees (Doire Press). She was a finalist in 2014 The Malahat Review Open Season Awards and short-listed for The 2013 Bridport Prize. Her work has been featured in The Stinging Fly and is forthcoming in the anthology Under the Influence (gorse editions). She also co-edits poetry and art magazine The Pickled Body. Originally from Ottawa, Canada, she currently resides in Dublin.