The Friday Poem on 05/07/2024
The age-old theme of fathers and sons is given a new look in this lovely, evocative sketch. So much is alluded to – the cancer, the ‘trouble’, last night’s pizza – but it’s lightly done, and the focus remains on the relationship between the two men, and its limitations: “But what else can we do?” asks the son? There’s delicious attention paid to rhyme (do / cue, say / way) and half-rhyme (trouble / visible, contact / pocket) throughout. It’s a great story, finely told.
A Portrait of my Father in the Public Bar of the Royal Arms
Thin but not gaunt – that came later when the cancer did its stuff.
Just now he’s on top of his game. The face that got him into so much trouble
still handsome, beige slacks pressed, the spots of last night’s pizza barely visible.
‘My boy,’ he greets me with a hug, buys me a pint, buys everyone a pint.
This space his living room, that bar-stool holds his shape.
The room swarms like an invaded hive. ‘This your boy, John?’
‘Don’t take him on at pool,’ one warns. But what else can we do?
He racks the balls, spins, calls heads and chalks his cue.
Silence falls as though the wind has carried in a scent of blood.
My mouth is dry. It’s not as if I don’t know what will happen.
His bridge hand trembles, not a mousy flutter, but a full-on shake,
a dodgy back and his head too high above the trembling cue.
Peering over half-moon specs, somewhere to the left of where he should,
only in the stroke does it all come good. A click of half-ball contact
and the red balls scurry each to its allotted pocket.
I don’t mind being beaten (I think) but none of this makes sense.
How can he flout the usual rules of pool with such aplomb
and leave me mourning another pointless loss? He claps my back,
‘Not ready to beat the old man yet?’
‘In time, in time,’ I say.
The chorus rises from the bar, ‘No way, no way!’
