Description: breakfast at Ohanas, a restaurant at the Polynesian hotel in Walt Disney World. "ohana" means family. beautiful florida morning, where the vile humidity hasn't settled on your skin yet, within the air coniditioned restaurant, you only feel the benefit of the view. you are the person in the place eating by themselves, though others were supposed to be eating with you.
and that's why you just want to sink into the floor, secretly grab the check and leave the room.
at a table fit for two
with paradise in view
sits picked-at food for one
the check laid
compassionately
at the unoccupied end
within covert
reaching distance.
I think the part I liked the best was a "table fit for two, with paradise in view"this leaves much to the imagination and still weaves a complete story,bravo on this one.
I love this - it's not forced on me at all, it's just presented with a quiet spirit of "this is how it is." It makes me think of how I hate sitting down to eat when I'm by myself, I just feel lonely and wish there was soemone to break bread with me.
I like the subtleness of the second line. Paradise is in view, but it's almost a torture because clearly you can't get there.
This is so sad. My mom and sister and I went out to eat the other day and saw something similar. (We weren't at any fancy place though.) This woman was sitting in a red dress with two wine glasses. One for her and one for someone who never showed up. She ordered, smoked, looked at her watch, smoked, ate, looked at the door, drank the other wine across from her, smoked, and paid the check and left. It was very sad to see. I felt bad for her. The guy stood her up! :( It happens in life but it's horrible to see in person (or even to be the person for that matter). Great write. --blt
this is so sad... its so brave to sit there when you KNOW you are sposed to have someone else there with you and for whatever reason they havent shown... this is very well written doll... im stuck by the lack of 'ohana' though... i dont know... the person sitting there by themselves kinda challenges and defies everything 'ohana' is all about. great write my orchids girl
I could totally see this happening. You make plans to meet someone there or something and they don't show. Or maybe its an old man who's wife just passed. They always had that one table in the corner of the room, and now that she's gone he dines alone.
I liked the contrast between lines 1 and 3. Like I said
ooh, i saw the check set down by an embarrassed waiter and on a looooooong table like that old Tom Petty video. I like when there's some unidentifiable something in poems that make you SEE. also reminded me of a line i wrote(that i can't figure out how to use...grr), "the sun sets a table for one".
Oh how sad... to be left alone and eating... but alas it happens... Still a very pretty(and short ^.^) poem... not to mention that I got a visual with it... rah... Blue I'm falling in love with your poems... Write some more! -Alli
I like the anomalous setting - paradise can indeed be sh1te for one day... Moody and achingly apt for the lone diner who endures the inquisitive over-the-coffee cup scrutiny of the wealthy because we are two. You said lots. Enough probably. K
Compassionately laid by a server who no doubt has been there before themselves. I don't know if there is a need to covertly reach for the check though, if one is dining al fresco alone. No one is going to fight you for it. Glad to see you post again, Dave
Simple, but very evocative. Ahh, the struggles of a poet's life! *extravagant sigh*. 'Within covert reaching distance' is good. I like that it shows the situation rather than telling everything. 'Picked-at food' should maybe have a dash in the middle, as I didn't read it right the first time. Becky
This person seems very lonely. I love that this is a short piece though.. it gets the point across with not need to elaborate. Good emotion in it.. nice job
Read slowly, as if picking over a sumptuous meal with jaded, lackluster appetite----the exotic horizon viewed as a tired thrift shop watercolor,--all flat with predictable and cliché landscape when one's vision is clouded with rejection and the mind perceives nothing, nothing at all save a keen sense of desolation and longing.
The loneliness is so poignantly presented with sparse but exquisitely succinct accuracy,--the one word that is the key to decipering this throbbing disappointment --for me at any rate was "covert".Why else would dining alone have such a numbing effect on the diner? Covert says "Everyone knows I have been abandoned, --how shall I manage my exit gracefully" It says "I wish I could just fade into the potted palms"
What makes this work so well is all that Isn't said--it's like a woodcut's negative image, -you get the picture, but its' opposite of the artist's intent. This minimalist approach works so well, because by just sketching the scenario, it focuses the crisis, the conflict and the action inside the mind of the lonely poet. And that's all well and good. I really liked this one Grace. Silver
Submission Name: lonely poet's breakfast
