“My Mother’s Ghost Sits Next to Me at the Hotel Bar” was first published in The Lake in December 2018.
O at the Edges
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
“My Mother’s Ghost Sits Next to Me at the Hotel Bar” was first published in The Lake in December 2018.
O at the Edges 
Wow. My mother’s ghost read this with me.
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Thanks, Bob. I hope it was a pleasurable experience!
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Indeed! LOL. Very vivid and moving poem, Robert.
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I’m so pleased it resonated, Bob. Thank you.
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Robert, you have this uncanny way of pulling the listener in, drawing them into the depth of your words, and leaving them wanting more.
That is rare with audio, but you have that gift.
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Thank you, Tre. I try to keep sound and flow in mind while writing. Sometimes it actually happens. 🙂
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You’re most welcome. I understand. Sometimes, you can get it on one take, but other times, it happens on the twentieth. Trust me, I understand.
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Yep, that’s the way it goes.
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Agree. I’m a rubbish reader. Will have to do something about it.
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Thank you! I read my poems aloud while writing them. By the time I record them, they’ve been recited a zillion times.
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That’s helpful to know, and encouraging to those like myself who are not confident at reading aloud. Practice practice practice, I guess.
Well done again.
Best,
OG&Bs
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Repetition helps!
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Amazing poem – very well read – felt like I was at the next table over in the hotel bar witnessing. And recognizing. There are multiple similarities here with my mother’s periodic “visits” – impromptu for the most part, though I’m summoning her now upon listening to you read. The cigarettes, the lack of eye-to-eye, the lack of response to serious comments … a generational thing, perhaps? My mother passed in 1990 at age 72 (cigarettes!). Before opening your post, I was preparing for a SoulCollage session this morning that will focus on MothersDay … I had just printed a copy of the last photo of Mother (she hated cameras!) a little over a year before her death … and your description of “blue-tinted and red-mouthed – face an empty corsage” … WOW, that’s apt! She is facing the camera and STILL not looking at me (more glaring at the camera!)
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Thanks, Jazz. Thirteen years after her death, and after numerous silent appearances in dreams, my mom finally spoke to me a few months ago. She said, in a broad midwestern accent, “You could stand to lose a few pounds,” which was funny on multiple fronts. Mom had a pronounced Japanese accent, and that phrase would never have come from her. She would have said something like “You looksa fat.” Ha!
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