I entrust my pension
To a silver town.
I have retired.
"I am different from others.
I was a civil servant."
The moment I enter the silver tower,
That scent of a silk road.
I drift off to sleep for a moment.
Awakening,
A dining table is spread out
Before me.
Five years later,
As the money in my pension runs low,
The food gradually grows saltier.
They are waiting for my death.
"You have basked in the sun for too long.
Soon, the moon will be waiting for you!"
I sit here alone, staring at your empty chair,
You'll never again be doing things sitting there.
I wish you had lived at least until I got here,
Because to me you were someone so dear.
I sit here at your tall dining table by myself,
I stare at your red cardinals on every shelf.
I wonder if you are really with me in-spirit,
Or if it is delusional of me to assume it.
I wish I could have cried with everybody,
But you clearly didn't even want to invite me.
I'm sorry I was selfish not paying my own way,
I just thought you will pass away anyway.
But I know now, I am all alone, in missing you,
Everybody always has each other too.
But I am strong enough to move on,
In spite of my grief over how you're now gone.
Someday I’ll miss the sound
Of my mom singing carols
Off-key in the other room
While I’m trying to fall asleep
(We agree Bing Crosby and Dean Martin
Have astonishingly similar voices)
Mingled with her announcements
I got another one!!
Tallying up her finds
On our impossible cupcakes puzzle
Marooned on half our dining table
Ever since last Valentine’s
(She wants to entice me to help her find more
But I lost my patience long ago
So I just made her a glass of lemonade
With five ice cubes falling from the fridge)
It’s mildly annoying right now
Hearing her argue with cupcakes
Singing along quite out loud
With her unending playlist
Yet it’s also kind of comforting
To pause and think
This will be a memory of her
I can make it sad or happy
And I know I’d regret it if I complained
Because someday I’ll miss the sound
Of my mom singing carols
It’s four AM
I’m wide awake
no chance of more sleep
clicking noises
from the dining room
low hum
is it voices?
I get up
pad into the dining room.
daughter and grandson
playing Yahtzee
at the dining table
laughing together
grandson worked late
daughter insomniac
I sit down
join the game
daughter finally
peels off for more sleep
grandson and I
continue playing
he makes a sandwich
cuts me up
an orange
I have an oatmeal
cookie with my coffee
grandson decides to
go to bed
I stay up
dress for church
write some poetry
it’s nine o’clock
‘When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.’ - Lauren Eden
-----------------------------------------------
Ed had all his father's traits
blue-green soft eyes, reed physique
reckless, tempestuous streak
rich baritone, proud
untaught to love and be loved
After 12 Christmas dinners
whole dining table went cold
alone, he had to go rogue
young, kinless, awkward
learnt to hate and be hated
Memory Poem In Apartment A - 1971
a brace of wine glasses standing tall on a kitchen table
greasy frying pan luxuriating immodestly in the kitchen sink
two forks and two knives bathing naked in the steamy water
vinyl black record spinning clockwise under a cool ceiling fan
music by beethoven caressing the hour with perfume sounds
clock on the television console ticking with slicker love-bites
purple pleated pillow breathing excitedly on a big green sofa
portraits of curious dead people peeping through glass frames
bowl of red fruit sitting ripe and ready on an oak dining table
wide open window allowing a red sunset through shy curtains
bathroom faucet in pink bathroom dripping rivulets of sweat
silent resplendent wall mirror staring with secret fascinations
a brace of wine glasses standing tall on a kitchen table
An aardvark walked into IKEA
Why he did that I have no idea
Ignoring their calls
To try the meatballs
He searched for some ants out the rear
He does ‘civilised’ when he’s able
So found a flat pack dining table
He’d built one - not ever
In inclement weather
And thus it was rather unstable
You don’t see aardvarks wearing wellies
While stuffing ants into their bellies
And if he should drown
While slurping ants down
Would it show up on closed circuit tellies?
He wouldn’t be humiliated
Embarrassment is over rated
The ground was now boggy
And aardvark was soggy
His hunger was not to be sated
So he snuck in to get meatballs - Swedish
He was wet so they gave him a free dish
He ate them real quick
And then he got sick
Had somebody done something fiendish?
The police came and said, “Well I Never,
Was it IKEA food or the weather?”
They found lots of clues
They thought they could use
But they struggled to put them together.
Walking downstairs; I see particles of light,
Shimmering in my dark brown long hair.
The light of stars is so bright that it
Envelopes all the darkness into light.
Sauntering there; I am made aware,
By the crispy clear voice of my dad saying,
“Come over there!” I stare looking at his short
Grey hair illuminating a silhouette of bright light.
Dressed all in white, standing.
A long wooden dining table is next to him.
That’s where my aunt and uncle are seated side by side.
My father then extends his tan brownish colored hand,
Offering me a golden colored round Ladoo.
I take it and eat the Ladoo with fervor.
Chomping away nothing flavorful and salivating,
As my surroundings change to pitch black with holding
Nothing but air.
I love building Lego with Timothy,
here's bricks for you and some for me.
We will play together so happily,
here's bricks for you and some for me.
We once tried to create a little mouse
on the dining table round at my house,
but it looked more like a grey woodlouse
on the dining table round at my house.
Lego always triggers our creativity,
we have such fun as you can see.
Tim let's try to build a bumble bee,
we have such fun as you can see.
Pa works in the Lego store warehouse,
he brings us new kits, we never grouse.
Ma says, "There's too much Lego in our house"
he brings us new kits, we never grouse.
Junk can become a enormously problem
Mountain of cheap and meaningless things
Hoarding disorder is a mental illness
Collecting junk because
they may be useful in the future
Narrow smelly paths cut through the house
walls of junk up to the roof
In this home love was born
The room where they were sisters
cozy they curl together
Walls with floral wallpaper
has been crumbled away
Things grow from the basement roots
grew larger and larger every day
Nobody finds the dining table
eats cold pizza on the floor
We remember
That night of horror
When the future was stamped and the cogs were slain
When the execution ground shone red with blood
The blood of the helpless cogs
We remember the horrors
Gunshots like fireworks
The cries of cogs like wolves in the night
As devil's favourite demons feed on raw flesh
We remember the depressed winds
The howling of the tortured winds
The breeze of grief. Of cold steeled grief.
As the cogs kneel with tears in their cheeks
Hands grasping the blood stained shield
Songs of hope in their trembling lips.
Fire! The only noise from the blood crazed hunters
As more cogs fall on the blood soaked floor.
Mother's in pain
Father's groaning inward
Siblings gathered around the dining table
Waiting for the blood filled dinner plate.
We remember the silence
The blood thick silence
The howls of the winds
As it whispers "gory" "gory".
We Shall Not Forget.
PAINTING
Dining table set :
Peerless painting of Van Gogh
defines dignity
adorning my dining hall,
also to welcome guests.
Education is her business;
Here, she needs no helper witness,
In all her classrooms Time Table,
In dormitory Dining Table…
Has now dumped chalk for Board Marker-
School has to be a pace-maker,
Where ‘Behavior becomes “Conduct”
Reader of Reports guess “Product”
Says both Scholarship and Moral:
Science clubs, Debate and Choral,
Strongly linked with Nation’s Future,
From schools shown Tomorrow’s Picture,
Clings to Reward and Punishment:
For child’s scoring: The Rudiment…
Where Exams are quite important
While papers are exorbitant
Things in life schools regulate,
Who’d been groomed should voice modulate...
Folks are saying “It should be free”
But funding comes not from a tree…
I am duty-bound to compliment a poet whose book I am reading.
I'm saying that it's as if from a dining table I am feasting.
I thought to myself as I was reading, "Why, he has a right to know".
His words are like seeds being planted in me, helping me to grow.
He must be made aware that he is like rare air so smooth, non-toxic,
pure, and very inspirational. Presently, each morning, he is a part
of my devotional. His lines are touching and enthralling, tuned and
well-defined. Just now, I am saying to myself, "What a great find".
021323PS
The steaming ghee rice,
yellow dhal,
cucumber salad,
spicy temptation wafting up from the beef curry…
My family,
from ma to niece,
sit at the dining table.
When I take the vacant chair,
I feel it’s an exact recurrence of a past feast.
An unreal reality.
Transient.
Living is an illusion –
the Indian philosophy glows like a firefly within my skull.
Man lugs life to death with a little knowledge.
Like telepathy,
déjà vu is another mysterious truth promising things beyond the corporeal end.
First published in The Literary Hatchet (issue#28).
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