Re: [ZESTPoets] To Daddy

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 02:57:39 -0800

Thanks vidya
I also hope that this parental fixation dies down. But I cannot resist this one as I am informed that  Jane has decided to do a mom-dad anthology. and this poem is a mom-dad amalgam. Here goes
 
Dentures
 
The eight teeth that father had lost
had left
wide yawning chasms in his smile
like favourite books taken out
of a rack
and not kept back;
but that was only at that vulnerable
moment, when he, before readying himself
to insomnia,
would carefully place his dentures
in a bowl of water
and then smile at some random thing.
Of course, at the end it would be
either calmpose or a Black
and white Bengali film which would
finally elicit a ragged snore
from him : like a mediocre rhyme
of a struggling poet.
 
Mom, on the other hand, had lost
only three (which conclusively proved
that Mom was younger and
that my parents were a conventional
Hindu couple).
Yet I realised that there were many
more chasms, though only in the
edges of her weary eyes and they
would show only in her frown when
I lurched home from another late
night party.
 
I do not know where and when
I had, like a decayed
rotten tooth, dislodged myself
and tumbled out of their lives -
leaving a
void in his smile
and an
emptiness in her frown.
 
I was slightly stunned though,
the other day, in the morning
when i saw both their dentures
in the same bowl of water
carousing like lovers who had
kissed for the first time.
 
Ron

vidya anjali <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hey Ronnie!
 
You said something which I'd been thinking over only last night . When we did Robert Browning's "Andrea Del Sarto" in class, I was very impressed by its technique- conversational, dramatic and very, very direct in its emotional appeal and wished to write one such. But at that time none of the themes quite suggested me, and I continued with my lyric poems...
 
yesterday, quite unconsciously I wrote this poem and in the night while I was reflecting upon the poem and thinking whether it needed any editing, etc it dawned upon me that wat I'd written was actually a dramatic monologue and it was such an unconscious attempt this time. I'll surely read this poem which u've suggested. Guess even that is by Robert Browning, right?
 
Thanks for pointing it out... :)
 
HEY AND I MUST SAY, UR POEM ON FATHER KINDA INSPIRED ME TO WRITE THIS ONE...
 
Regards,
Vidya.

ronnie banerjee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear Vidya
 
this conversational style is good. I like it. The poem is honest without any attempt to stylize or with it tending towards pomposity. Ur poems seem to be like that. Even ur "globalisation" was direct. The style seems to be getting to the meat of the matter without further ado.
The style in this poem is the dramatic monologue. Read "the Last Duchess" surely..
Ron
 


vidyanjali_1980 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Reading all these poems dedicated to parents, I got tempted to write one for my father. Father had always desired that I write a poem for him and I thought of utilising this occasion in making an attempt. Hope you all enjoy it...!
To Daddy
Dad, do you remember
That creamy yellow t-shirt which I wore
As a baby with these words,
"I love Daddy" inscribed on it?
Look here is the picture of it!
> >
I still love you dad,
Twenty years later, from that day
When this picture was taken,
I still love you, for the way in which
You would come and wake me up
In the mornings singing those stupid
Old Tamil songs into my ear, so loud,
That I would get irritated and throw the pillows on you!
> >
I still love you, for the way in which
You would hide money in your spectacle-case
Instead of your leather wallet, thinking
That I wouldn't find out, when I come asking for it!
And you would believe your money is
All safe inside it… unless you find
Out how I'd emptied it, sneaking
Into your room when you were away!
> >
I still love you, for the way in which
You would crack those dirty shit-and-fart jokes
Right when mom would sit down to eat
(The thing she hates the most!)
And irritate her so much that she'd walk out
Angrily and you would sing an old Kishore da
Song to make her smile again!
> >
I still love you, for the way in which
You would bore me to death
With all that philosophical talk of yours
And when I walk away, disregarding you,
You would say nothing
And with a serious nodding of the head
Would convey that I'm forgiven
When I would later come and say `sorry'!
> >
I still love you, though you haven't stopped
Smoking those cigarettes- they are so suffocating!
(Remembered, you'd promised me long ago that you would?)
And taking rum, though I have shown you
So many newspaper articles that talk about
The ill-effects of alcohol consumption…
I care for you, dad, and I just can't bear
To see those chest bones now jutting
Out of your thin, frail frame…
> >
Oh! I know now what you'd say.
You'd talk about the inevitability of death,
That it must come in some way or the other
And it doesn't matter…but not this way, dad,
Not this way, for ever since you retired
You have been shrinking into some lonely corner
And seem so distant,
Though I have you seated next to me…
 
 
 

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Enjoy this Diwali with Y! India Click here

Enjoy this Diwali with Y! India Click here

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