FORMALITY
Ashok Niyogi
What will you find
That you have not found before,
Which emotion of an alien kind?
What will you find
To trouble your heart
If your heart is not already troubled?
Which teardrop will it bring to your eye?
In the event of the formality being over,
Lets walk down to the nearest pub
And share a pint of Larger.
Pubs open at eleven
So at best, we’ll have to wait for five minutes.
You are already thinking of Vodka with a beer chaser.
You don’t want to get chased so early
We have things to see in Wales,
And in any case their local language
Is an absolute belter.
So sit back, have tuna sandwich and coffee
And enjoy the bus ride.
Am I being contrite or am I?
I met this fellow in Bristol
Who used to drive a truck into Saint Petersburg
(it was called Leningrad then)
And he actually claimed that he had had
Kalbasa (1) and brown bread at a friend’s house.
He actually claimed much more
But I am being a gentleman.
And he said he saw the frozen Baltic Sea
Just like you and I did see while holding hands.
Hot palms were hot,
Weren’t they?
And I threw a pebble that skidded seven times on the ice.
Then we walked into a Finnish gastronom (2)
And bought French wine
And did the day.
Once we did that the day was done.