Open Poetry #44 |
Gay Guys 'N Lost dads..' |
sullivanthepoet.com Member
since 2007-06-28
Posts 154Devon, England |
Sunday morning ghosts of other outworn lives, pale and mislaid; Lost still in their faded last night mirrors they gather. Hunched; Bag eyed and world weary, over coldly indifferent bad coffee in half empty department store cafeterias. Fleeing each the vacant graffiti stained parking lots of their weekend existences: Boarding house and attic bedsitter days lived at burger chain counters and coffee house pavement tables in sleepy eyed Sunday morning town centres. Dropped aitches in the Sabbath’s cruel ‘ourglass... No workaday grind and hustle in which to hide, seek blessed sanctuary; anchor themselves, brief and tenuous. Just broke chain buoys; Bobbing and weaving in the uncertain currents; All adrift upon their lonely mal de mer seas. Whilst, as if in mockery, all about... Fertile families. Dropping their noisy anchors in jostling flotillas at freshly wipe washed Formica topped berths to swarm ashore on plastic coated pontoons. Cheerful and jolly in their close company and oblivious to the lost and weed hung floats adrift in their lea... Snot faced and rub kneed in blue dungarees; A small boy. Staring and unselfconscious; Awkward and tousle headedly blonde; All laughter and fidget under the comforting and confining weight of a father’s heavy arm. A stranger’s child yet oh so, so, heart achingly familiar. Innocent and unwelcome mirror to a somewhere son; A Saturday and McDonalds and Lido son. A son who comes, dutiful and expectant, for his treats and his sweets and waves and goes home. To his other dad... The one with the comforting and confining heavy arm. As ‘gay’ as a damp November Monday crematorium; Wet feather peacocks; Decked and dyed and camp as Chloe. Staring out of windows and peering at style supplements from vainly unread gargantuan Sunday papers... Squinting through gaudy glasses held folded and awkward in front of faces sagging with heavy loveless years. Ill fitting ‘off the peg’ faces looking, longing, still for that elusive ‘bespoke’ love. Faces too vain to wear spectacles but all too head butt and hard fist and flailing boot savvy to risk a glance at a small boy. A snot faced and rub kneed small boy in dungarees. Lovers giggle at a shared intimacy in a corner booth, oblivious and invisible; Unseen and unseeing in their secretly al fresco world. Furtive kisses, demure and innocent, teasing each: Scented and fragrant candles lit between lovers fated each to burn as a single flame: Guttering and dancing in young eyes and speaking softly of the conflagrations to come in their stolen and intimate night time embraces. While sad and hopeless eyes stoop to familiar horoscopes; And a small tousled haired boy wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve and wonders, guileless and curious, why the man in the faded blue shirt is crying... © Sullivan the Poet 2009 |
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© Copyright 2009 Sullivan - All Rights Reserved | |||
Osprey Member
since 2009-04-12
Posts 249 |
An absolutely, stunning piece of poetry. I'd move on, but why? You know the answers. I'm standing, and applauding. And by the way, I'm not gay, just born of empathy. |
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sullivanthepoet.com Member
since 2007-06-28
Posts 154Devon, England |
Osprey... Why thank you my friend - I am flattered you enjoyed it so. I am not gay either but we are all human and must each, as is the right of any man, seek our ease where we find it. As people we all have a shared experience and there will always be so much more that binds us together than drives us apart. |
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Osprey Member
since 2009-04-12
Posts 249 |
I doubt your conclusion, but may you outride my cynicism. |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
You held my attention the entire time in the scene you set with this poem. Fantastic writing, and very vivid images. You are so right - there are more things that bind us than separate us. Well done! Carpe' Diem, |
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sullivanthepoet.com Member
since 2007-06-28
Posts 154Devon, England |
Mysteria... I thank you for your kind remarks - I am delighted you enjoyed my work... |
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