Time & Faith

Time & Faith

We have our little say and then are silent.
—Thomas Lynch, "Father Andrews"


Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy must have known
it was wrong to call Hey, Joey! and get someone
tossed off a building. And he must have known
the pigeon in his hands wasn't his, that it would
fly to its owner when he let go—how one idea
leads to another—like an ocean's tidal answer
to the pull of the Moon. The priest/Karl Malden
is talking time and faith, easy for a priest to do.
Priests know that most of us experience Time
as the clocking in for wages and Faith as that
Something-Else-We-Should-Have-but-Don't.
Like a direct line to the Almighty or the correct
ecclesiastical understanding of St. Paul's letters
or bootstraps by which to rise to some position
other than a man who loads and unloads ships.
But the priest isn't completely full of shit since
it's about whatever we say it's about. Or nothing.
A phalanx of resolute longshoremen broadcast
rotten-toothed smiles to say, loudly, as a whole:
The world will swallow you; that is, if someone
doesn't toss you from a rooftop first. Terry hears.
He wanders streets of Conscience, having gotten
a woman's brother killed. A young, blond woman
who when kissed kisses back. Terry of the speech
in the backseat of the taxi! oh, Terry who could've
been a contender! who could've been somebody!
Terry of the scars, the trademark fighter's face!
We hear their words, we brace for the beating.


Copyright (c) 2009 by Roy Bentley.
All rights reserved.

Category:

Entertainment

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• Word
• Poetry
• On
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• Marlon
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• Malden
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• Saint

[daveebella09]

roy.

you are the most prolific writer i know!!!!

...and you are from OHIO!

[twohawksfucking]

Are you from Ohio, Vickie?

Roy

[OsvaldoPaese]

loved this.

The working class is always worth writing about.

[twohawksfucking]

I grew up watching my dad and my uncle Bill struggle and prosper by virtue of factory jobs in Ohio. They were escaping jobs in the coal mines of Kentucky--neither worked in the coal mines, and everyone else in our family did. Then, when my father left my mother, she went to work in a factory and we were able to eat and hold on to our house... When I came out of the air force, it was a factory that received me with open arms.

That sort of work is Salvation, all the heaven I'll ever know.

[tjkoz22]

Excellent piece, Roy, really dig this one

[twohawksfucking]

Thinking about you, my friend.

Roy

[daveebella09]

no, i am not, but i wanted to learn your style of writing!! hahaha,...you're some kind of story telling and free-flowing...but i hate reading.silent reading okay.

vicki

[twohawksfucking]

You deserve spoiled, or readers like you do. They are the heart of Literature.

I never tire of hearing you figure out what I do, Lo. Because I haven't got a clue...

Roy

[StarryRendezvous]

Glad to see you posting new poems!

[tinySpectacle]

Roy. What a incredible poem. You do this often: pick a movie and exploit it brilliantly--make the reader see it in the way you want.  And the theme here, I think I have detected it in your other poems here and there, and you always articulate incredible insight in to it. In a way, when I read a poem of yours, I kinda brace myself for the beating: that upheaval that asks the viewer of art to really see something in a way she hasn't before. You spoil us.

Lo

[RowanFortuneWood]

Incredible, nuanced and clever as always. I like the way you use pop culture references when dealing with such complex themes. Thank-you for sharing this, it improved my day considerably. 5*/fav.