THE TABLE IN A RESTAURANT
Bhaskar Roy Barman
The moment I close my eyes
In meditation on the unfathomable
I visualize golden fleeces of cloud
Perambulating the skies
And old faces peering down through the fleeces,
Their faces writhed into a semblance of smile.
With them I used to sit at a table in a restaurant
By the window overlooking a garden.
The smells of the garden-flowers
Would spatter against the window-pane.
They left me closeted with the ever-changing world.
I feel, whenever I sit at the table, their hanging around the table.
I glory in living in the ever-fresh changeability
Of the ever-changing world.
They have stuck at the last words
They had uttered at the table
And at the last glance they had thrown
Through the window around the garden.
I can have trees felled. if I like to I often do,
For it fetches me a good amount of money I can,
If asked to, stand on a dais to deliver a mellifluous speech
On the necessity of afforestation.
I can attire myself in ultra-modern habiliments
When I go out with my wife to have people think
We are but a happy couple,
And to get ourselves photographed to remind ourselves
We married each other one day.
But they remain clothed in the garments
They had worn at the table.
In meditation I visualize them mocking me,
For I have shut my eyes to the truth of life..
Related poetry:
- The Table And The Chair Said the table to the chair, “You can scarcely be aware How I suffer from the heat And from blisters on my feet! If we took a little walk We might have a little talk. Pray, let us take the air!” Said the table to the chair. Said the chair unto the table, “Now you […]...
- Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad Of subtly-changing and surprising parts; His moods are storms that frighten and make glad, His eyes were made to capture women’s hearts. Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings An olden song of wine and clinking glasses And riotous rakes; magnificently flings Gay kisses to imaginary lasses. Alfonso’s voice of […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 03: 05: Melody In A Restaurant The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us, Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes; You strike a match and stare upon the flame. The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment, And dwindles away as silently as it came. This melody, you say, has certain voices- They rise like nereids from a river, singing, […]...
- Je Suis une table It has happened suddenly, By surprise, in an arbor, Or while drinking good coffee, After speaking, or before, That I dumbly inhabit A density; in language, There is nothing to stop it, For nothing retains an edge. Simple ignorance presents, Later, words for a function, But it is common pretense Of speech, by a convention, […]...
- Honey At The Table It fills you with the soft Essence of vanished flowers, it becomes A trickle sharp as a hair that you follow From the honey pot over the table And out the door and over the ground, And all the while it thickens, Grows deeper and wilder, edged With pine boughs and wet boulders, Pawprints of […]...
- The Times Table More than halfway up the pass Was a spring with a broken drinking glass, And whether the farmer drank or not His mare was sure to observe the spot By cramping the wheel on a water-bar, Turning her forehead with a star, And straining her ribs for a monster sigh; To which the farmer would […]...
- TABLE SONG [Composed for the merry party already mentioned, On the occasion of the departure for France of the hereditary prince, Who was one of the number, and who is especially alluded to in the 3rd verse.] O’ER me how I cannot say, Heav’nly rapture’s growing. Will it help to guide my way To yon stars all-glowing? […]...
- Dream Song 96: Under the table, no. That last was stunning Under the table, no. That last was stunning, That flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed. Why drink so, two days running? Two months, O seasons, years, two decades running? I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff: Man, I been thirsty. The brake is incomplete but white costumes Threaten his rum, his cointreau, […]...
- TWO LOVERS Bhaskar Roy Barman Once on an evening in a desolate place Far from the madding crowds eternal strife I stood closeted with the eve-beauty Manifested around the place, Exposing myself to the eerie and stifling air And trying to attune my ears to the bacchanalian fits Of silence dancing in moonlight. My eyes darted over […]...
- The Mocking Fairy ‘Won’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden; ‘Can’t you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?’ Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden; But the air was still, the cherry boughs were still, And the ivy-tod neath the empty sill, And never from her […]...
- Red-headed Restaurant Cashier SHAKE back your hair, O red-headed girl. Let go your laughter and keep your two proud freckles on your chin. Somewhere is a man looking for a red-headed girl and some day maybe he will look into your eyes for a restaurant cashier and find a lover, maybe. Around and around go ten thousand men […]...
- Lord, what a Beloved is mine! Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess In my breast a hundred meadows from his reed. When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me, He says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.” Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The Moon […]...
- Restaurant No, you’re wrong. Everyone is as beautiful as they can possibly be Particularly at lunch in a laughing restaurant Everyone is as beautiful as they can possibly be And they are moved by their own beauty And they shed tears for it in the back of the taxi home...
- Dans le Restaurant LE garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule: “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux, Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie; C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.” (Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie, Je te prie, […]...
- PROMISE Bhaskar Roy Barman The scene lacked for the manifestation Characteristic of a scene. Though the scene was promised a revealing A plethora of manifestations that remained over. In other scenes manifestations reveal themselves Of necessity when called for. No messenger from on high did descend To bestow upon it an afflatus for creation. It was […]...
- Welcome to the Table This is the feast of heavenly wine, And God invites to sup; The juices of the living Vine Were press’d to fill the cup. Oh! bless the Saviour, ye that eat, With royal dainties fed; Not heaven affords a costlier treat, For Jesus is the bread. The vile, the lost, He calls to them; Ye […]...
- OPEN TABLE MANY a guest I’d see to-day, Met to taste my dishes! Food in plenty is prepar’d, Birds, and game, and fishes. Invitations all have had, All proposed attending. Johnny, go and look around! Are they hither wending? Pretty girls I hope to see, Dear and guileless misses, Ignorant how sweet it is Giving tender kisses. […]...
- The Planet On The Table Ariel was glad he had written his poems. They were of a remembered time Or of something seen that he liked. Other makings of the sun Were waste and welter And the ripe shrub writhed. His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of […]...
- Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the window pane The blizzard sculptured on the […]...
- Holy Day Los Angeles hums A little tune Trucks down The coast road For Monday Market Packed with small faces Blinking in the dark. My mother dreams By the open window. On the drainboard The gray roast humps Untouched, the oven Bangs its iron jaws, But it’s over. Before her on the table Set for so many […]...
- On King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester Where Venta’s Norman castle still uprears Its rafter’d hall, that o’er the grassy foss, And scatter’d flinty fragments clad in moss, On yonder steep in naked state appears; High hung remains, the pride of war-like years, Old Arthur’s board: on the capacious round Some British pen has sketch’d the names renown’d, In marks obscure, of […]...
- The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
- Korean Mums beside me in this garden Are huge and daisy-like (why not? are not Oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?), Shrubby and thick-stalked, The leaves pointing up The stems from which The flowers burst in Sunbursts. I love This garden in all its moods, Even under its winter coat Of salt hay, or now, In October, more than […]...
- A Radio With Guts it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street I used to get drunk And throw the radio through the window While it was playing, and, of course, It would break the glass in the window And the radio would sit there on the roof Still playing And I’d tell my woman, “Ah, what a […]...
- It would have starved a Gnat It would have starved a Gnat To live so small as I And yet I was a living Child With Food’s necessity Upon me like a Claw I could no more remove Than I could coax a Leech away Or make a Dragon move Not like the Gnat had I The privilege to fly And […]...
- To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...
- The Cap And Bells The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose […]...
- A Proud Lady Hate in the world’s hand Can carve and set its seal Like the strong blast of sand Which cuts into steel. I have seen how the finger of hate Can mar and mould Faces burned passionate And frozen cold. Sorrowful faces worn As stone with rain, Faces writhing with scorn And sullen with pain. But […]...
- Love Will Wane When your love begins to wane, Spare me from the cruel pain Of all speech that tells me so – Spare me words, for I shall know, By the half-averted eyes, By the breast that no more sighs By the rapture I shall miss From your strangely-altered kiss; By the arms that still enfold But […]...
- THE MAGIC WAND Bhaskar Roy Barman Once in my childhood I watched mesmerized a magician Magic everything away from before my eyes And thought he had descended, endowed with supernatural power, From a fairyland where illusions reigned supreme To transport us into the world of illusions. I got thrilled at the flying of a pigeon away From under […]...
- Summer begins to have the look Summer begins to have the look Peruser of enchanting Book Reluctantly but sure perceives A gain upon the backward leaves Autumn begins to be inferred By millinery of the cloud Or deeper color in the shawl That wraps the everlasting hill. The eye begins its avarice A meditation chastens speech Some Dyer of a distant […]...
- Ring Out Your Bells Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead All love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdain; Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy, From such a female franzy, From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weep, neighbours, […]...
- Dippold the Optician What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain-a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? […]...
- Approaching The Veil, Scientifically Eyes like stars sparkle and die And cycle into new stars, new eyes. The answer is outside our window. Astronomers look For the beginning And find there is no end. Down to earth There are frozen lines, Winter trees, Stalled cars in dirty snow, Sorrow over endings. The real world is through the window, Infinite, […]...
- Ancestors Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors, Foregathered in some chancellery of death; Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards And move their faces slowly in the gloom, And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued, Lustreless eyes and acquiescent lids. And oft in pauses of their conference, They listen to the measured breath of night’s Hushed sweep […]...
- Under Cover of Night To slip into your shadow under cover of night. To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window. That shadow at the window is you and no one else; It’s you. Do not open that window behind whose curtains you’re moving. Shut your eyes. I’d like to shut them with my lips. But the window […]...
- This Window is This window is confidence, Documenting proceedings, Capturing moments, Cleansing views Challenging sentiment. This window is nourishment Filling the eyes With strong drink, And acidly piercing Over-elaborate structures. This window is furniture Re-hung like a picture, Recording new outlooks When the old pleases No more. This window is doorway To feelings, Good feelings and bad, All […]...
- The Abduction Some things I do not profess To understand, perhaps Not wanting to, including Whatever it was they did With you or you with them That timeless summer day When you stumbled out of the wood, Distracted, with your white blouse torn And a bloodstain on your skirt. “Do you believe?” you asked. Between us, through […]...
- My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
- THE AMARANTH Bhaskar Roy Barman The kaleidoscope stood befrilled with splendour; No messenger from on high did descend to hand It blessings, though. The rassling trees coruscated in an interplay of light and dark, The sun dipping down the western horizon. Exuding a unisonant desire to search for the amaranth, A group of youths were chanting their […]...