Durkheim at the Budapest Cafe

 I wrote this many years ago as a gift to my father when he retired.  (I eventually went back to the Budapest Cafe.  The service and the food were both terrible.)  

        DURKHEIM AT THE BUDAPEST CAFE 

                          (for my father)

                                     by

                           Nina Kallen                                                  

 

The CSA met at the round table
Of the Budapest Café.

The prices were outrageous.

The waiters were snotty.

I accompanied you underdressed,

And squirmed in the greatest elegance I had ever seen.

"Ask her why! Ask her why!"

You insisted your colleagues inquire 

Why my father's daughter

Was majoring in sociology.    

Like a deer caught in headlights,  

I searched for the soundbite 

That would explain my life to date.   

"She read Durkheim," 

You filled in for me. 

Everyone understood everything.

Everyone laughed appreciatively.  

That was half my life ago.  

I passed through loving Durkheim, 

Ambled through scoffing at him,  

Came to annually dusting off the top of Suicide 

On the second to the bottom shelf.  

That night was our fulcrum, 

Two lives momentarily balanced,

In the sways of ups and downs,  

In the love of a dead Frenchman, 

In words that explain everything and nothing  

To everyone, 

And to each other.

 

My poem 2024

 I won first prize for the adult category in the West Roxbury Library poetry contest this year.  The contest's theme was "Wonder."

(The gap of a few years is for a few reasons.  I skipped a year or two -- was too busy to meet the contest deadline -- and a couple of poems I switched over to a blog under my pen name.)

At the Green T Coffee Shop

 

When the little girl in front of me

At the Green T Coffee Shop
Uses her allowance money to pay it forward,
And I don’t even like coffee, I’m only ordering a cup
So that I can seem normal to the businessman I am meeting
To try to convince him to refer clients to me,
And the cashier says the little girl has paid for my drink,
And the businessman is standing behind me,
I try to say, “No, no, I don’t need this,
Save it for someone who needs it.”
But the little girl is looking at me with her gigantic blue eyes.
Her mother standing nearby is so smugly proud
That my focus on selling myself to the businessman
Is briefly interrupted by wanting to yell at the mom,
“Don’t teach your daughter that she needs public affirmation,
(She’ll be dealing with social media soon enough),
and that good deeds are rewarded with gratitude,
and that you should give your money to businesspeople.”
I tell my kids this story later
(I took the free coffee, I tell them, sheesh),
And they say I’m awful.
 
And I wonder, are they right?
 
A few weeks later, at the same coffee shop
(Shout out to Green T, you give bikes
To kids whose bikes were stolen.
You are Good, although I cannot comment
On your coffee, because I don’t like coffee),
I am meeting a different man.
He may be a businessman, I don’t know,
Because we are on a Date. 
We talk about –
Well, him, of course.  (So at the time
I knew whether he was a businessman,
I just don’t remember now.)
In the many emails we had exchanged leading up to this
Date,
I had said, no PDAs, Roslindale
Is a small town, my divorce is not final,
I don’t need my kids to hear any gossip.
We talked about
Him
For a while, until I was anxious
To get back to work, or my kids, or away from
Him,
And we walked out together,
And he kissed me, and I was so surprised
(I mean, it was my first date in 30 years),
I may have kissed him back,
And people were walking by and laughing
Like we were cute.
 
And I wonder: is this what cute is these days?
 
And I wonder:
Where am I in all this? 
 
I am at the Green T Coffee Shop
In Roslindale Massachusetts
And for right now
That has to be enough. 
 

My poem 2020

 I won first prize for the adult category in the West Roxbury Library poetry contest this year.  The contest's theme was "space."  

I'm generally a big believer in letting poems stand or fall on their own, but this one deserves an explanation:  it was written at a very specific time at the beginning of the pandemic.  I do not believe I would have written this poem even two weeks later.  There have been too many losses, and I am not okay with that.  (Also, some formatting was lost when I cut and pasted.) 

Confessions in the Time of Coronavirus

by

 Nina Kallen

 

 

Social distancing.

 

If it were not for the death, sickness, and despair,

And the economic collapse that may follow,

I would be okay with this.

 

Every cancelled networking event

Thrills me.

I dutifully buy gift certificates from restaurants

So that in the normal future

There will still be places where I can

Listen to mortgage salesmen discuss golf

And business brokers mourn closed strip clubs,

Intercepted by the occasional

“We need more diversity!”

No, I do not miss them.

 

I make ridiculous plans.

I will plant peas before St. Patrick’s Day.

(Oops, I did not.)

I will start a new sourdough starter.

(Unlikely.)

I will call my elderly neighbors.

(Eventually.)

 

I have always scoffed at homeschoolers,

And “unschoolers” are even worse.

Imagine letting our children learn what they want,

When they want. 

And yet, now,

Stuck at home,

With each other,

And worse for them, with me,

Will my daughters write that musical,

Or make that poster

About the benefits of vegetarianism?

Maybe they will start the sourdough starter

(Still unlikely.)

Maybe my over homeworked, over girlscouted,

Over honor-societied, over leadership-trained,

Over everythinged

Wonderful kids

Will sleep

(Not metaphorically, just sleep). 

I would be okay with that.

 

Maybe in a few tomorrows

After we mourn our losses

We will wake up refreshed

Ready to do battle with the world again

To demand diversity

To have our soul projects

To make time to sleep.

I would be okay with that.