Best Remotes Poems
Friends , while reading the History of the Incas , I came across the wonderous story of their
mail runners , the 'chasquis' ! Kindly read their story !
THE MAIL RUNNERS - ON THE INCA TRAIL !
(COURIER SERVICE)
The Inca Empire during their hey-days, *
Controlled a large Empire of an elongated
shape!
On the western coast of Latin America, -
All the way from parts of Ecuador and Colombia!
With parts of Brazil in the east;
Including Chile and Bolivia in the south and
south-east;
While the Pacific Ocean washed their long western
beach!
Where the great Andes range like a raised spine, -
appeared out of reach!
Yet on the central verge of this Andes’ range,
Was located their capital Cuzco with its grand
defence !
The Incas had no horses or wheels to facilitate
communication,
But had an efficient courier service within their
nation!
They relied entirely on their ‘chasquis’, - those
valiant mail runners,
For sending messages within the Inca Empire!
These runners ran on that historic ‘Inca Trail’,
Crossing gorges(pogos) and mountain tracks, -
before night fell!
And rested at ‘tambos’** during their segmented
race!
Those Incas had no written scripts those days,
And used knots in ropes as coded messages!
These ‘quipus’ at relay stations changed hands,
While their runners took them to the remotes corners
of Inca land!
Their suspension bridges with ropes indigenously
made,
Formed their roadways as their Empire spread!
And those bridges were maintained every year,
By villagers rendering public service to the Inca
Empire!
Those valiant runners could run in a day, -
A distance of 250 miles , as experts say !
And could put to shame the Marathon runners
of our day!
I salute those sturdy Incas for their unique stone
architectures,
Who honored their Gods and their ancestors!
Their ‘chasquis’, those valiant mail runners and
their nimble feet;
Without horses and wheels the Incas ruled a mighty
Empire complete !
-Raj Nandy
Notes :-
* During the fifteenth century Incas were at height of
their power!
**Tambos’= relay stations , for the Mail Runner (chasqui)
to rest and handover the ‘quipu’ containing coded
messages to the next runner - to follow the Inca Trail!
Thanks for reading ! - Raj Nandy
My Grandmother's Hands
My Grandmother's hands told many tales
Of scrubbing steps and broken nails
Hand-washing clothes in enamel sink
Red football socks turned white towels pink
When not baking cakes at the old gas stove
Rag-rugs with old scraps of material she wove
Pantry shelves filled with powdered egg
Homemade rice pudding sprinkled with nutmeg
Sea-coal burning on an open coal fire
Bread on a toasting fork burning like a pyre
Grandma plumping up pillows from beneath granda’s head
Applying ointment to sores caused by being confined to bed
Hours spent at auctions bidding with her hand
Buying an incomplete bed wasn't what she planned
Back home in time for tea, crumpets and homemade strawberry jam,
I can still recall the smell of it, bubbling in the pan
Switching tv channels with a flick of her wrist
That’s how we did it back then, when remotes did not exist
Working hard all of her life, meeting everyone's demands
Every line and wrinkle told a story
On my Grandmother's hands
All my home remotes died today in Spring.
Dumbstruck by 'GreyTooth' the Pirate King.
Who like Harald 'Bluetooth', the Danish Monarch
had a dead blue-grey tooth in his head, a hallmark
of how smart a pirate he was to stage a scam demand
that I pay a ransom to release my remotes from remand.
So what do I do as nothing works without a remote?
I feel like a wader poking fingers down hole's throat,
hoping to get a reaction from my TV, Stereo and other devices,
that only work to the sounds of remote signal advice's,
made by Bluetooth in responses to keystrokes.
This reliance on remote devices really sucks, folks.
Broken TV Revelations
Alone, countless ancient uncles
linger in confessional apartments—
stare into virgin wombs
of empty TV screens, reciting
lines from old John Wayne movies.
They know the words
like pearls cast -- sip communion coffee,
swallow mute manna of Wheaties
as they trowel moist smoothness
of remotes
in spattered stone mason hands,
plumb-lining life’s purpose.
The gods
will make it right—
resurrect the Duke
to his virile glory.
For now, sermons suffice—
mind’s pictures chiseled
into resurrected cocoons,
screeding heavenly images
like fleshy mortar
as they wait the mason
and slowly savor
the lost teachings
of big John’s
benevolent fist.
I travelled to my daughters home
to babysit the kids
I’d not been there ten minutes when
my mind was on the skids
and not because I couldn’t cope
I’m qualified, I think
But I couldn’t work their microwave
To warm the baby’s drink
I thought to use the kettle
As a secondary ploy
But no instructions were to hand
For this confusing toy
A pan then as a last resort
Would be my saving grace
But couldn’t turn the oven on
To save my blushing face
Plan B then, turn the telly on
The cartoons never fail
But five remotes soon had me beat
‘twas now my turn to wail
the garden and a trampoline
would now my saviour be
but now faced with a locked back door
I couldn’t find the key
Distraught, I looked for games to play
I would succeed, I would
And then 6 words which saved my life
I’m back, have they been good?
Leading you!
Close your eyes let me show you the way
Not a hit movie or child's play
Let me reveal some things to you this day
Answer questions family feuds pass my days
My ways are better than yours remember
Like Rocky shot Bull winkle twinkles December
Let me change sides arrange the lyrics to your song
Sony kicked death jam with Chris bomb
Based projects sold fences with wrenches
Battled down tears with walls called truth with suspension
Called out the wanna be's
Bees with no tree flowers with stems broke back pinned in with fig leaves
Let me separate wheat from tears
Phonies with no hairs
Traces of laces lies slipped in with truth see
Listen to me I have all the antidotes
Cable with no remotes
Change traded for stock piles without notes
Who says that I am
Cap sized skillets sticking like Pam
Pressured arteries hospitalized pumped up with methadone like shame
Discovery hidden in the dark
Let me reveal to you when light hit the chart
When man made time
Talk mess with no rhymes
Peeped game like Slick mine
Rick Ross with no crimes
Let me strip up a mid line
Crooked ways been signs
Operated chilled shine
Gold nuggets been laced
With under cover who based
Truth facts with out states
Property been paid
No money like mechanical tool base
Wait now later caught up with tooth paste
Shuffling sandstone, infinite shimmering coloured pots,
TV remotes lie in tandem with jeans, shiny toy robots
Act as magnets to the unwary tourist, conspicuous in
Their presence, shorts and cameras, humid hair in knots.
Spices of hues in their hundreds to make you salivate,
Groaning shack tables of suspicious sunglasses sate
Your appetite for purchases, the sun beats down on
The market, Medina bursting with life which cannot wait.
Eyes flicker over unsuspecting strangers, enticing you
To buy, trapped by the lure of a carpet woven new
By sweating men grasping, chasing any chance to sell
The future. Will you ever use this carved snooker cue?
A dedication to my roommate
The way she left,
The remotes side by side on my bed she left
I remember the day I fought
for the remotes to be left by my cot
I screamed
We were just strangers living feet apart
You thought I was a selfish prick,
I thought you were a boring stick,
I remember the day you bored me with those chessy flicks
I grumbled
We were just strangers living feet aparts
You speak I am just a robot, who nods side to side,
Never looking eye to eye.
I remember the day you cried,
Into your pillow at night,
I know I should have held you tight,
And told you it was alright,
But I was a selfish prick and you were right,
I told you,"well it is life, so shut up and sit tight",
You laughed, I was suprised,
We were not so strangers living feet apart
I remember the day you fell ill,
I wanted to run like hell,
But came out of my shell,
I stayed still,
no sound, lights down until,
You were well.
And then I came down too,
With the same sickness as you,
But you were there for my rescue,
We might be stuck in this place smelling of shoo,
With no of our own tissue,
But through highs and lows,
You were there for me and I for you,
Two lonely souls,
Just living feet apart
I remember the last meal we shared,
No calls after that,
If you meet me on the road somwhere,
Please remember the moments we shared,
The wardens we scared,
The glares we snared,
We were one hell of a foolish pair,
So smile,
As we were strangers, who lived feet apart.
MY BELOVED REMOTE
I sat om my remote unit after a tiresome day at work
so tired was i that i let myself go and it broke into two
i am spying our receptionist TD remote with much envy
just lying there on the reception desk no one catering it
remotes very strange gadgets only superficially understood
small but very powerful just watch a man fiddle the gadget
you will realize its a symbol of power an status in social setup
i broke mine humbly i suffer the indignity of a manual system
i have to leave the warmth of my couch blanket and tap loved tv..
the few pitiful buttons are now supposed to substitute my "gadget"
its a gadget of technology whose worth few appreciate till broken
suffering humiliation of punching the four buttons on actual tv set
they have now gone digital migration and a tvs menus reads as thou
its the encyclopedia Britannic we need tutor-age to decipher manual
that's why i keep eyeing TD remote for you never know the day that
i will need a replacement seeing that market is flooded with imitations
the orient guys are flooding the market with cheap fake imitations
driving the lovely gadget to a low life expectancy it suffereth in silence
i love my gadgets and the remote guarding them jealously for loss is grief
to them lazy bones claiming fatigue now being tortured to leave warm 'duve'
Lewis k nyaga
19/01/2015
looking beyond the sky, yes i stare above the mountain.
to climb it in several trips that at last i build a tower.
withing my thought the heavens raise their smiles but the earth place me bellow the mountain.
rest became my enemy that at the end we will all leap for joy.
prayer became my lover but in a loud voice i heard the negative of my prayer.
melancholy became my lover that i be a lover of women for joy.
several were called, none was chosen,
the instrument of the village remotes for failure.
mr sylvester udemezue was right about you but i was made powerless to bring you down.
daily sleeping in the class and pressing of my phone to overcome the sleep,
though i studied like tomorrow will be the exam day yet failure laid its hand on me.
oh, lest i be ungrateful.
it is only the foolish one that will not appreciate God.
there is nothing that happens to man without God knowing.
praise to the creator for the unfolding success.
I travelled to my daughters home
to babysit the kids
I’d not been there ten minutes when
my mind was on the skids
and not because I couldn’t cope
I’m qualified, I think
But I couldn’t work their microwave
To warm the baby’s drink
I thought to use the kettle
As a secondary ploy
But no instructions were to hand
For this confusing toy
A pan then as a last resort
Would be my saving grace
But couldn’t turn the oven on
To save my blushing face
Plan B then, turn the telly on
The cartoons never fail
But five remotes soon had me beat
‘twas now my turn to wail
the garden and a trampoline
would now my saviour be
but now faced with a locked back door
I couldn’t find the key
Distraught, I looked for games to play
I would succeed, I would
And then 6 words which saved my life
“I’m back, have they been good?”
Where do remotes go, is what I,
in aggravation ask?
Mine must have feet and to find
them is a most frustrating task.
Hiding under a magazine or my cat
lying on it, hatching one like an egg?
I have tried many methods, but I swear,
mine all have their own tiny legs.
Do they get together at night and have
meetings to strategize?
I think they really do, those teeny monsters,
is what I do conceptualize!
September 19, 2020
7pm PST
7pm PST
In halcyon olden days of yore,
When box TVs were far from smart,
The youngest in house used to bore,
If lovingly, the chore TVs to start.
Then came remotes— a political mace
At home they have tended to be,
And if I may, no less a menace—
When needed, always remote from me—
Perhaps, why we call them remote!
Which, a moment a sub’s ordered online,
Back in view from nowhere float,
Oh to make you look asinine!
Oft a cause of bedroom uproars
And keen to start marital wars,
When, with fuzzy warmth of winter
The two-some quietly saunter.
Yet, who’d the remote bring?
Well, not before things thaw in spring!
I’m now waiting for a remote—
Universal that’d get no one’s goat,
And one with fewer buttons than my age,
That also is easier to engage,
Ideally one, user friendly,
For an old sort not so friendly.
Today’s remotes, it appears,
Have buttons like my wasted years,
And pointless as I can see
With coloured ones, I feel lost at sea.
Even TV deft hands advise me
Not to worry, unnecessarily!
Let today’s smart TVs feel that remote
Really turns them on,
As for me, they often trigger my horn,
To me they feel like a crop of wild oats,
Perhaps, both because grapes are sour,
And too tall be the vine bower.
______________________________________
Free verse | 06.11.2022| humour
We named him Buddy. He is a Great Dane German Shepherd mix
A baby; we keep saying we should have called him Marmaduke.
In one month he has chewed up at least a hundred things.
He has chewed the lids off of twenty-four water bottles and six juices.
Did he dump them? No. He did it without spelling a drop of juice.
I am down to two pairs of shoes.. Four are tattered and torn.
He chewed up a brand-new car cover which had never been used.
He demolished a package of Styrofoam paper plates too.
When we go to bed we don’t know what we will wake up to.
The living room is usually full of things we forgot that we had owned.
One day I recognized the shredded material but did not know why.
It was a child’s umbrella, I had not seen for ten years.
He is the chewing-est dog we have ever had.
And we have adopted nineteen dogs.
If he ever decides to chew up the furniture
We might have to think of obedience school.
We have chew marks on our TV remotes.
He demolished an Amazon gift card box.
Need I go on? We love the big lug.
We call him the big galoot; and we are glad he was dumped here.
Some other people’s dogs bite, snarl and snap like turtles on speed.
Our young puppy Beau dances, twirls, and bites his tail as if he’s on weed.
The other dog, Buddy, is a gentle giant, over a hundred pounds of love.
He was sent to us via a dumping, from angels who live well above.
It is no accident that God and Dog have the same three letters.
Beau, our deranged puppy is one of those romantic go-getters.
Being a retriever, he fetches everything – leaves, sticks, or a ball.
We are such dog people, we have four dog beds lying in our hall.
They might want to drink water, so we have six gray water bowls.
Buddy sits calmly while Beau digs enormous muddy burying holes.
They have personalities that keep us excited, they fill us with joy.
They want to eat our slippers and remotes, ignoring every dog toy.