Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Garage Sale

The mother puts on a bellicose facade
Forcing her son into silence, who frowns;
At the loss of all things precious

Superman’s first adventures, torn
A bicycle too small,
A shirt too tight,
A dancing monkey,
His first tennis racket,
A poster of Agassi, with flowing hair.

Fifteen years of accumulation valued
At sixty dollars and twenty square feet

22 comments:

Lotus Reads said...

It's so true, I find it a herculean task getting my teenagers to part with their stuff, even when it's clothes that they have outgrown or books they no longer read.

"Garage Sale" made for nice reading, Parth, thank you!

Anonymous said...

Nice one! Interesting how certain objects mean so much to one, and li'l to another.

Pallavi said...

but you cant put memories on garage sale..can you? but i always wonder how you choose topics to write poems!

Stone said...

hmmm....though difficult but sometimes becomes necessary to shed some emotional baggage.

Parth said...

@Lotus Reads: Thanks. While I am on the other side of the fence still, my sympathies are more with the teenagers :-)

@Niranjan: True. Isn't it then about power? Can you keep under control what you want?

@Pallavi: This is the fourth or fifth time I have been asked this question on my blog :-) Honestly, I don't know. It just 'comes'. The only conscious thing I have been trying is to not repeat subjects I have touched upon before. Day to day life provides me enough material to work with. I like highlighting the little things we take for granted.

@Stone: I agree.

Persona non gratis said...

yeah I like your choice of topics very much. Makes it stand out from the things which every one writes about, love, hate, pain, hope etc etc.

mystic rose said...

i could never accept this concept!
tho the lines are sweet.

and about the boys bringing inthe series,
YEAH!! WOOOOOOOHOOOOO!

Parth said...

@Shremoyee: Thanks :-) Hope to keep the interest alive.

@Mystic Rose: Break open the champagne :-)

RS said...

Nice...I should think of this when my teenage son frowns at me during our garage sale :p

Do you follow a particular style when writing poems - limerics, rhyming...I don't know the variations that exist...just curious, a friend of mine wrote really nice poems as comments to my posts (thought you might like to read some), here's one I like:

An eternity ago, when we still kissed,
I stole a peek at her closed eyes,
During a particularly passionate kiss,
And wondered what pictures played,
In those eyes that dreamt my dreams.

Parth said...

@RS: If you do remember it when you son frowns, I'd have made an impact :-) I don't follow any set rules for my poems, definitely not too keen on rhyming all the time. But I have built a rhythm I follow, in terms of how the poem is setup, and how it ends. The way I construct the words for lines is also similar. Maybe one of the readers should shed some light on whether they see a pattern :-)

der Bergwind said...

maa wud not be selling off the things a son out-grows... or maybe.. life has a way of balancing its pans... and wud a son frown at the loss? sometimes pain, hurt... protest n fights generate a vacuum.. a hollow inside... but again emotions don have a defined route... they don have a fixed trail...
nice verse.. the thoughts... and again.. ironic that in life everyting has a re-sale value :) but still all of us are so poor - in varied dimensions :))

Parth said...

@Der Bergwind: We all flit from being materially poor to emotionally rich and vice versa. The absence of the former may pinch as you grow older perhaps and have more responsibility. The mother may pause a moment and consider her son's favorite shirt, but eventually life takes over.

TheExperimentalMom said...

The sons is lucky to have his mother decide for him what is no longer needed.
Many of us are not lucky enough to have that helping hand.

On a different note, the irony is, the son would not even 'sell', he would just 'give away' those precious possessions, for lack of a better understanding of the re-sale value.

Does it even make sense?

Parth said...

@Sparsh: Didn't realise this poem is going to elicit so many different view points. Over time, I believe, the son would have given up all but a few that he really 'values', and at that point, it is completely and utterly worthless to everyone else.

Radha said...

Well written Parth! :)
So true that we often assign value to things without valuing the memories attached to them!

Anonymous said...

Wistfully sweet.

30in2005 said...

I can't think of the last time someone used the word 'bellicose' - I love that word!!

Super stuff Parth!

J said...

Well written! Reading this, I'm between the devil and deep sea! Much as I like clearing off the clutter, it's hard to part with fond memories!

Parth said...

@Radha, Vi: Thanks

@30in2005: I felt the exact same way when I had finished using it :-)

@Jyothsna: I guess both parties in the poem here have clear leanings, and no ambiguity about it.

Bla said...

!!!

Anonymous said...

Nice one!

Stone said...

Some relief at last :-)