Living Room Poem by FABIYAS M V

Our evenings have withdrawn
into a closed living room,
where we don't chat
but let a large TV cheat us.
We watch life on a screen
with a vicarious thrill.

There were children everywhere
in our ancestral home -
you could see one
even within a bamboo basket
lying upside down.
‘One' is the ideal number now.
No one likes
noises annoying the living room.

We've banished our only daughter
into an adjacent study -
where she's seen
as a broiler chicken.

A savory smell,
wafting up from the kitchen,
used to tickle my nostrils,
while sitting on the veranda.
Now our cooker rarely whistles -
fast-food parcels really silence our kitchen.


Our pa and ma had defeated the hard soil -
it was their sweat drops
that soothed our stomachs.
We've discarded the defunct parents
in a dark stinking room,
even where they pray for us.

We peep into others' life
with a voyeur's eyes.
Love and fun hatch not
out of our muted words.
We aren't living here,
only imagining of living.