seat. And cloud
as the day fails and dusk deepens
to purple, then prussian. The roads
sudden trails of light and busy
with weekenders, cars filled
with youth who still roar from windows
in their agony of looking for trouble.
The roads and the world and all that backfires
counted and catalogued
in my book of the dead . . . I tell you
of a moment’s suspension, the dark
strong grip of my father’s hand
as my own fails on a mossy ledge –
a child for a moment hanging free
and who sees in his father’s eyes
something beyond the human:
it is this look that saves him,
something in the father’s eyes
that softens from surprise and anger;
and framed by the coal-dark face
against grey winter cloud.
The father caught finally
recognising his role.
But that is one moment, one click
and the years will darken
like they do between father and child.
You tell me of your own father
eaten by the age-old cancer
of this land, running
from black vandals into the past
and finding himself drawn life-large
in the grudging cross hairs of white vandals;
of brothers like eels slipping
from nest to nest, their father’s sons.
And your grandfather, the first man
you loved; his agony
that could do nothing but follow
its male expression
in the predictable fist, like my brother;
your grandfather who taught you
how to measure out beer in a moving car
while he watched the road for cops.
Man and granddaughter you hold
to me, palms opening on what
I imagine your own
brief, bright kingdom.
Then, an expletive of delight
as you jackknife into that memory,
come upright again.
So night falls, you laughing,
cross-legged in the driver’s seat,
and dipping in and out of the years,
reordering time until, unknown
to you, a man’s eyes soften in your own
and you too are a child again.
In bed with Jimi
I know I’m too young for this,
him dead now forty years plus.
I can’t help and lift the bedding,
all of me trilling like an eel
when he whispers to me.
And then he’s here, long fingers
like unequivocal gods,
his lips like warm, despairing pawpaw,
like two lines of despairing Baldwin
and he stretches and strains.
Then he’s arching against me
but won’t let go of his guitar,
his fucking guitar. But so, still,
we make it. Slowly first
we make it, and the worlds fade.
All states of the world fade.
On reading of Henry’s suicide
As Henry finally moves himself to choose
the knife, the gun, or an embankment,
I get to where, impatient,
I can light my cigarette.
But I find at my dry, ashes’ end
that Henry dawdles for a day or two.
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