Father and Son

Father and Son


The last time I heard the voice of Roy Bentley
he began by saying he was the other Roy Bentley.
Said he'd been to a hospital to get two pints of blood.
Wanted me to know he wasn't coughing as bad.
That he loved me. Said I could call him later,
never mind that Time is a zero-sum game

and that one day soon I'd have to press 9
on my T-Mobile voicemail to protect the message,
to keep it from disappearing as he had that night,
so that I might listen and hear again his "love you much"
from a place as certain about the existence of God
as it is the nature of all the wavelengths of light.

The other Roy Bentley was always leaving messages.
Snapshots, handwritten birthday-card breadcrumb trails.
And, sure, his heart beat with about the normal dread
of "the inadequate grave," as James Dickey called it.
That narrow room in the dark he paid to have dug for himself
beside my dead mother Nettie whose picture he touched

for those months he perfected the role of Surviving Husband.
His was a strange joy but one you heard in his voice
as he told her about an upside down world.
At last, having fallen back in slow and perfect surrender,
like Donald Armstrong in that poem by James Dickey,
to some extent "having done all things in this life that he could,"

who had himself paid for more than one funeral of another
and shown at least one other what it is to live, to die—
fallen back like that and staring as into a far-off face, going—
mine was the last hand on his warm and beloved face,
and I spoke as that Other Roy Bentley, saying, "Don't be afraid"
and the useless rest of it that is between him and me now.


Copyright (c) 2011 Roy Bentley. All rights reserved.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• twohawksfucking
• Roy Bentley
• free verse poetry
• Spoken Word
• poetry
• James Dickey

[luvmypeke]

I am sorry to hear of your Mom and Dad's passing. It has been a sad year for you. Just wanted you to know that I was touched by this poem. You have a special way of sharing feelings that we all have all experienced. Hope this new year brings you smiles. Wanda

[twohawksfucking]

@luvmypeke Thanks, Wanda. Yeah, 2011 was tough. The upside, if there is one, has to do with feeling like you did what you could for them. I'm wishing you a great 2012, too. Roy

[EllyMcCormack]

I really loved this one. Thank you so much for uploading it! 

[twohawksfucking]

@EllyMcCormack You're welcome. And thank you! (For lightening my mood...)

Best,

Roy

[DavidRandallCurtis]

Genius. Faved & shared on facebook!

[twohawksfucking]

@DavidRandallCurtis Thanks, David. I appreciate that. Couldn't come at a better time: Just had an hour wait for AAA, after a tire problem. (In the Iowa chill!) Nice to be called something good, a fine thing in fact, though it's definitely something I will want to shrug off rather quickly... or I shan't be able to walk about in the bland, bad-tire of a world!

[twohawksfucking]

@tinySpectacle Thank you, Lo. I appreciate your support as a reader; I thrive, as much as I do, on reaching readers who feel as well as think. Your comment says it was (is) the same for each writer: We stand on tall shoulders as we wrestle the Big Questions, questions freighted with emotion. I managed this by letting grieving happen to me.

And I cried all the way! (Literally.) Big goofy guy that I am... Dickey is wonderful, isn't he? Still, I wish I was doing my "wrestling" in Florida!

Roy

[tinySpectacle]

...cont. Seeing Dickey's lines in this poem seem to point to that hand--a community, our universal connection. And just as you found truth in his lines for your poem, I find so many moments in your writing that speak to me. A beautiful poem Roy...I don't know how you managed it.

[tinySpectacle]

In this poem I love how you use the lines from James Dickey. It reminds me of something the teacher Hector from the play History Boys says: "The best moments in reading are when you come across something--a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."...

[twohawksfucking]

@rpVerlaine Yeah--I like that phrase: "the useless rest of it"... But, like you, I know too well what goes with understanding why it works. Hope you're well, and thriving!

Roy