Crunch

# Cold cut chicken breast pieces (four or five maybe)
# one cup creamy mayonnaise or Caesar sauce splattered over its contents
# half lettuce head torn to pieces
# sliced tomatoes
# sliced red and green bell pepper
# grated Parmesan cheese
# salt,pepper and the likes.
I dug deeper into the my chicken Caesar salad. This was the first time I'd managed to get hold of a salad for lunch all by myself with my parents watching and not doubting my anorexic tendencies.'Healthy' was in. It was a substantial amount of salad anyway and as I toyed around with it I imagined the chef hurrying carelessly to gather the contents of it and then putting them together while other important dishes played at the back of his mind. My salad was not one of them, it was just another obligation that would win the restaurant another seventy odd pricey bucks.

And while our conversations didn't focus much beyond the unusual granite surface of the table, my career that was going nowhere, the elections and the unbearable heat of summer.. something that did capture my interest in the due course of time were the people sitting at the table to our left.
The table accommodated one man and seven women if I counted correctly.The slightly over dressed women with their hair oiled together and tied down by the weight of sweet smelling flowers,their bangles clattering against each other..they formed quite a chatty bunch.
(Now this aspect of being a writer I can never quite understand...ostentatiously elaborating things that don't quite get my attention or affection.)
What interested me was the diligence that the lone male entity commanded at the table.He reminded me of a king surrounded by eager wives trying their hardest to make the best impression.Ofcourse he wasn't king and obviously most of the women could have been his immediate family...but there was something so alluring about the awkward pride that he cultivated deep within himself.You had to see it to believe it.This odd mix of chivalry and gawkiness.
'These are my women...' I could almost hear him say..'They laugh when I laugh,they listen to what I have to say- it is important to them,and look how tremendously pleased they are when I address even one of them in public.'

'These are my women..' and the look on his face is even more interesting than the meek impersonation of a Giacometti painting that hung above him.
Giacometti and his remarkably twisted lonely figures.Isolated,oddly shaped,intense and anything but forgettable.
The immediate question following the work of of an artist that pops up into my brain dead head is..well..How did s/he die? I ridiculously can't stop myself from doing that or wanting to know that..I just have to know it.
Giacometti died of percarditis and chronic bronchitis. What were you expecting ?? Suicide??
Shame.That's all I can say.Shame.

'My women..' he still held his head high.
'Well..as long as you pay the bills..' I thought and continued to dig at my caesar salad for more chicken.

So I was browsing through the poetry section of the library the other day and this is what I came across..

Now it is important to know that these brilliant pieces are all by 'women.'
I suppose I have been evolving as a feminist.

Things
by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having
behaved foolishly in public
There are worse things than these
miniature betrayals
committed or endured or suspected
there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them
It is 5 a.m. All worse things come
stalking in and stand icily about the
bed looking worse and worse and worse.

Television - Anne Stevenson
Hug me, mother of noise
Find me a hiding place
I am afraid of my voice
I do not like my face.

Gray - by Alice Walker

I have a friend
who is turning gray
not just her hair
and I do not know
why this is so

Is it a lack of Vitamin E
pantothenic acid or B 12
or is it just from being
frantic and alone?

'How long does it take for you to love someone?'
I ask her
'A hot second,' she replies.
'And how long so you love them?'
'Oh anywhere up to several months'
'And how long does it take you to get over loving them?'
'Three weeks,' she said, 'tops.'

Did I mention I am also
turning gray
It is because I adore this woman
who thinks of love
in this way.

And this one's the best that I came across as yet.

Men, who needs them? - by Louise Hudson.

Now I go to films alone
watch a silent telephone
send myself a valentine
whisper softly 'I am mine.'

The funny man and his drum

I would like to comment on the title of my blog..not only is it reverting, it is also untrue. On second thought I wouldn't call the man funny and I am not really sure about the drum thing either.

There was a wailing down the street at 8 in the morning. It was one of those days when I forced myself out of bed,early on to let the refreshingly cool morning breeze do its bidding of clearing the clutter in my messed up head. The wailing alternated with the sound of drums and other 'beats' whose origin was hard to define.
'What's that?' I say.
'Don't look..' says Mam.
Obviously I do.
I sneak peak through one of the living room window's upstairs. A forty something ragged wretch doing his version of a jingle on the street, hair flared up like a broom on the loose and white streaks across his emaciated torso (which bore the brunt of his ribs sticking out) making him look like an indie photographer's flavour of the month.
To his waist hung last century metallic apparel that had lost both luster and sheen. His bare clothing included a disarray of not so enchanting colours.

I call him 'funny' because whatever adjective I would address him with wouldn't be of much relevance to him or rest of the folk around him watching him silently with faces that spoke of disgust and ridicule but eyes that couldn't conceal a hint of envy.
Envy? whoa where did that come from? I'll tell you why..its because apart from the momentary insanity that the funny man left behind, he also left behind a certain nakedness of facts. A nakedness of entire perceptions and conceptions that are brain fed to us every now and then. Stark naked..and this we as followers of humanity cannot define.

That was all that was left lingering on the empty street after he left - a nakedness of the facts which was disturbingly sufficient for you to question - all that you were doing, all that you did and all that you once planned to do.

And what's funny is this..it takes a semi clothed wretch doing a jingle on the street to make us stop and stare and look at who we are and our respective places on this planet.

In The End..

In the end that's all there is..
* you end up telling people you hate that they are not exactly 'bad'..(since everyone deserves to know and they just happen to be only ones listening..)
* In the end..you end not loving those you once loved dearly.
* In the end..you end up knowing more about yourself than you possibly could.
(...because it just happened.)