PROMISES

PROMISES

Be spare with promises,
circumspect: these prim and pretty  
parcels of pledge
are wont to squat egregiously
and chase your eyes,
or else slyly hide and swell
with newly-harboured hopes
Take care, be spare, avoid delay;
be ready for delivery day.

Son-spotted, this pannier of promises
gathered and gleaned
while panning for nuggets among
the spoil heaps of old songs:
“I will show you morning
On a thousand hills
And kiss you
And bring you seven golden daffodils.”
The pledge is made
I will shoulder this promise pack.
I will deliver.

A problem, son posed,
in this sad and cynical age:
“Is it OK for boys to kiss their Dads at ten?”
It’s OK, more than OK, at ten,
It’s just the same, and more, at twenty
It’s still fine at thirt …
                 at thir …
                 at th …

There will never be time enough for kisses
Between the string of sunrise hills
and the sorry bunch of daffodils.

The frosted earth heaves
And the treetops chime in the cold ringing dawn
A wisp of weariness drifts by
Apprehension curls in a corner of my mind
the haze-shrouded morning segues
to promised peaks of cloud-sundered hills;
Memories of majestic magisterial mountains
conspiring in silent communion
with mist-soaked dawn dappled dales

In this landscape of misplaced modulations
Across the shapeless steppes of my mind
I sense within the psychic wilderness,
pollen-borne and putrid,
another self chasing the whispers and scents
of long-extinguished lanterns.

Last-first seems here appropriate
in the final distillation
of yellow-headed hopes
a promise of daffodils delivered
a pledge redeemed and yet
I am burdened:
bound by promises
I will never get to make.

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This is the third poem I have made in memory of my son who ended his life [aged 29] six years ago. The first poem is WEBMAKER & FRIENDS and the second is ABOUT FACE. I know this will bring unhappy memories to at least one of my friends, and I’m sorry for that. If, however, it the poem makes any reader feel something for my son, I am glad for that – the saddest thing about his funeral was that the only mourners were colleagues, family and friends of my ex-wife and me. No friends of Rhys could be found.

The poem came after a chance remark – careless or callous, I’m not sure which – made by my ex-wife. “He was never happy since he was fifteen” Which was, of course, the age of my son when the marriage broke up and I left the family home. All the feelings of guilt, never deeply buried, re-surfaced and, well, this poem was the result.

The incident referred to actually happened – we were playing all my old vinyls and recording only those songs we still liked onto tape before getting rid of the unwanted discs. ‘Seven Golden Daffodils’ by Lonnie Donegan struck a chord with my son, and we made an agreement to carry it out. The question about kissing is also true … and a sad reflection on the prejudices of our times.