So, my buddy Swabbie had a stroke.
We used to smoke
And drink and talk, laugh loud and long.
He was strong, the second-best surfer I ever knew,
Like he flew through the waves, a grizzled longboard man
showing the grimmies how it’s doneNow it’s time for a cold one.
A lineman, chief electrician, for the city, then the county,
With a bounty on his head
For shutting down a drug-ridden trailer park run by the 13th Street Posse
For code violations.
Code violations! Like getting Capone on tax evasion!
Never got that TV interview, too dangerous,Bangers watch TV too. Cross them at your peril.
Now we sit at Captain Hiram’s for lunch,
Him firing on five cylinders,
Slow to move and speak,
To understand, to answer, to get the joke.
He can’t even take a leak without I bring him to the jakes,
Wifely eyes pleading, me all solicitous,
Him frustrated, embarrassed,
Pissed off at being laid low like this.
And there sit I – I, who whined, Whitman-like,
“Oh me! Oh life!” Oh please.
Jeez Louise,
Crying pewling, mewling
While he’s drooling in his shoes
Never surf again, never drive.
Wifely eyes pleading, me all solicitous,
Him frustrated, embarrassed,
Pissed off at being laid low like this.
And there sit I – I, who whined, Whitman-like,
“Oh me! Oh life!” Oh please.
Jeez Louise,
Crying pewling, mewling
While he’s drooling in his shoes
Never surf again, never drive.
I’ve got some nerve.
Self-pity is yet the bitterest pill, damn it,
I have my life and I will live it still.
I owe him that.
I owe him that.
| Copyright © 2021 by Roger Owens |
Roger, thinking about your poem on my walk a couple of days ago, I thought of a simile comparing love’s perfecting itself through hard trials to a liquid filtering down through rocks and sand and shale and purifying itself....The narrator’s love for “buddy Swabbie” is all the stronger for all those hard experiences had with him.
ReplyDeleteI remember going to a friend's mother's funeral, she was 98 when she died. I looked around the church at those gathered and noticed only two frail old women of the age that they may have known and loved her. We others were there because of our friendship with her children. I became very sad at the thought of living so long there would be no one left upon your death that really knew you.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, as I was working in the back yard, our neighbors’ three-year-old son yelled out, “Hi, Morris. See my shovel? I’m working too.” I shouted out “Jacob, I like that color green!” He continued to call out and show me his various plastic tools. Later the idea hit me that we older people can extend out lives in the memories of others by so engaging as many young people like that as we can, in the hope that some of them will remember us kindly in many years ahead of them. I guess they need to be at least five, however, as that is commonly the age people report having their first memories of things.
DeleteA wonderful poem by any standard. A poem of old age and memory.
ReplyDeleteA piece of great empathy and instruction. Thanks so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis one hit like an afternoon rainstorm and I pounded it out in about 10 minutes, so I was more focused on the pure emotion, a kind of exhilarated self-disgust, because I'll tell you, "What Are These Things" was not characteristic of me at all. I am ever the determined, even belligerent, optimist. I KNOW I will prevail, I'm too bull-headed to quit, and too stubborn to admit I could ever fail. One way or the other, I will get what needs doing done. I know you do not share a belief in a higher being, but for myself, I need someone to thank that there, but for the grace, go I. I recall miserating to myself about my bad knee (long since fixed just fine, thank you), when I saw a one-legged man in a wheelchair tooling north on the sidewalk off US 1, his few shopping bags jammed here and there, using his one leg to propel himself. The sun beat down on him, deeply tanned and fit for a guy probably late 60's, long hair, wraparound shades,no shirt, cutoffs, and one flip-flop protecting his single sole. And he was SINGING. Jimmy Buffet, "Lovely Cruise". I could hear him from across the road. And I thought, happy people sing. As messed up as he was, he was HAPPY. I sing all the time, whether I'm happy or not; it's just my nature, my Welsh origins I guess. I was singing in the church and school choirs at 7, right through to high school. I had a couple bands, way back. Another thing arthritis has taken: no guitar playing, that's for sure. As I said; self-pity sucks. This article is my way of giving it the finger, and honoring my friend.
ReplyDeleteFor other readers’ information, Roger is addressing ME in the sentence of his comment above beginning “I know you do not share a belief in a higher being....”
DeleteInteresting detail: "Lovely Cruise" by Jimmy Buffett was, for the last several years of my solo act, my closing song. Such a great tune, and a great finish.
ReplyDelete