Living Room

Our evenings have withdrawn
into a closed living room, 
where we don’t chat
but let a large TV cheat us. 
We watch life on a screen 
with a vicarious thrill.

There were children everywhere
in our ancestral home – 
you could see one 
even within a bamboo basket
lying upside down.
‘One’ is the ideal number now.
No one likes
noises annoying the living room.

We’ve banished our only daughter
into an adjacent study –  
where she’s seen 
as a broiler chicken.

A savory smell, 
wafting up from the kitchen, 
used to tickle my nostrils, 
while sitting on the veranda.
Now our cooker rarely whistles –
fast-food parcels really silence our kitchen.


Our pa and ma had defeated the hard soil –
it was their sweat drops
that soothed our stomachs.
We’ve discarded the defunct parents
in a dark stinking room, 
even where they pray for us.

We peep into others’ life
with a voyeur’s eyes. 
Love and fun hatch not
out of our muted words. 
We aren’t living here, 
only imagining of living.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2016

Poem

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