Howl : An Ode to a Lost Generation

by Philip John

[box]Philip John attempts to capture the disillusionment and confusion that seems to be characteristic of men in their thirties in urban India. A poem on and for the ‘lost generation.’[/box]

The bartender places my glass
On the table and begins to speak:

Your job holds you to ransom every morning
But you refuse to jump off the gangplank
Your wife absorbs all your confusion like earth swallows rain
But you won’t lean across the bed and kiss her goodnight
You think of how lonely your parents are and it makes your heart sink
But you call them on the phone and your blood starts to boil
You want to hit the road and keep driving till you touch the horizon
But you worry about a flat tyre stranding you on the highway
You write your heart out, page after page after page
But you avoid publishing like the plague
You say if you ever have a daughter you’ll call her Ashley
But your five-year-old niece exhausts your patience in under a minute
You confuse desire with love
You also confuse guilt with love
Then you confuse love with tedium
You don’t even know what love means
You have been searching for something for the last twenty years
But you wouldn’t know it if you found it or you wouldn’t care.

You are all a lost generation
The bartender says
Then he downs my glass and takes it away
I look at the jagged circle of water it leaves on the table
Outside the wind begins to howl

* “Lost generation” quote attributed to Gertrude Stein, 1926
* Last line taken from “All along the watchtower” by Bob Dylan, 1967

Philip John is currently a marketing executive with a consulting firm. His passions include literary fiction, jazz, movies, vintage art, comics, poetry and twentieth century American culture. Writers he admires include Michael Ondaatje, Philip Roth, George Orwell and J M Coetzee. Philip lives and writes in Bangalore.

Philip attended the Bangalore Writers Workshop, an interactive method of bringing a group of writers together and allowing them to study the craft of writing while receiving constructive feedback on their own work. More details are available at http://bangalorewriters.com/

[facebook]Share[/facebook] [retweet]Tweet[/retweet]