Your
poems
Brian
friend
I
do not wish to patronise you
I
do not wish to
tell
you how to feel
if
people laughed at your poems
it
was because they loved
your
poems
you
write wonderfully and I am jealous
you
write with real vigour.
When
I come to write I feel up-tight.
I
feel, impossibly taut in the shoulders
I
feel.
each
punctuation point each mark
misses
the point. Stop. I can only
string
words only on to tight threads.
But
stirring words.
You
write stirringly.
You
write me.
Strongly.
Please.
I
need you to know that I read your poems
aloud,
and I know it was wrong
in
a way it was
wrong.
I
know.
But
I read your poems and I need you
to
know.
That
I read them aloud because people should
hear
them and in truth, I liked to be heard
reading
them. I want to be allowed
to.
We
were young boys then, and you seem to feel
I
remember when I visited you
In
2004. I was worried about my degree if
I
was having an authentic university experience if
I
was working too hard. If I were good enough. Because
I
always expected to win a prize at some point. Always expected
To
be rewarded, and I was finding that I did not have the natural talent.
I
expected. I always. And you were planning a trip, working in a bookshop
You
seemed to be in control.
I’m
sorry I was
I
was a total cunt
I
was to you.
I’m
sorry you feel betrayed.
I
want your poems.
To
be allowed to read them
Again.
Sam
Re.
Regarding my previous message
I
notice that you haven’t replied to my
previous
message.
Listen
to me Brian.
you
wrote:
“insofar
as truth can be found
in
what must be at least 100 tonnes of marble
all
told”
and
“you
let your eyes sink
into
the vanishing point”
These
lines make me think of the way you look
how
you see nature, or the statues in the museum
I
think of you letting your eyes focus
and
it makes me jealous.
Because
I don’t really see anything
really
I
describe objects, I try
to
convince my readers, I can observe
a
truth or a meaning in the world
but
Brian these are unlatched ideas
which
I hope I can lend profundity to
with
wordplay somehow
But
Brian you write as you wish
the
words that you choose are clear
Even
this doesn’t make any sense does it.
Brian
I can’t make sense of the world
At
best I lie.
when
you write that line about a handful of French fries
you
draw out the salt wet from the clammy
cold
things bought and wrapped in cardboard and paper.
Reading
that I could feel that those words chime
In
a way.
I
could see it in the eyes of the people I read to
I
could hear in their breaths that what I said
was
understood too. I need your words so that
I
can speak so that people understand and so that
I
get respite from the sense that I’m misread.
Or
that I miswrite.
Dearest
Dearest Brian
it
has been a week, has it?
since
i wrote to you and i am late home from the pub late
i
know
and
i am sorry about the text messages
and
i am sorry about the missed calls
but
i cannot have you hate me for this
or
but
i cannot have you take this from me
i
write with judgement on my mind
too
much judgement in my
oh
brian
you
and i
we
were 13 in 2001
i
came on an italian holiday with your family
Tuscany
you
seemed confident with your larynx
and
your sexuality
i
remember on the night train looking at the girl in the next door booth
every
time that she came past.
we
waited in the hallway partly with that express purpose
and
when we went through paris i was proud to see the eiffel tower
in
the distance.
i
had won the top bunk, all 4 of your family and i were there
i
spent the night shuddering with the train
aware
that the girl was only through the wall
you
told me that you’d spoken to her
on
the way to the toilet
you
said you could see her nipples
through
her pyjama shirt
i
was jealous like she’d taken you as a lover.
remember
tom from the year below
i
think he would understand
he
works at the poetry society now
i
understand from googling his name
at
a particular low point
brian.
i have always been jealous of you
i
hope you can understand
i
want to read your words
just
the same as i wanted to go out with your girlfriends
i
am late home from the pub late
home
and i am drunk from 10 pints
6
pints i am drunk from so i hope you understand
that
i cannot string this together
surely
this is inappropriate
surely
this is late too late
is
it
brian
i’m trying to get you to understand
that
i feel bad about this
drunk
as i am
after
four pints
maybe
five
and
yet I can’t say i wont pass your poems off as my own again
please
write back to me
I
received your emails
I
didn’t want to tell you this
I
sent you my poems just because
I
was told to by my therapist.
In
a way you didn’t understand
the
ways in which they were about
Our Childhood
or Our Friendship
But
I notice since you read them aloud
Even
though you did not get it
They
have had the desired effect.
You
needn’t reply to me
Brian.
ok
friend…
look
at our friendship
when
we walked alongside hadrian’s wall
day
after day for how many days?
in
the dinge and we remembered what it had been
when
we were – is it legionnaires?
you
would know the right word
i
remember stepping over exposed walls
at
one of the forts when you had an idea
for
a television programme
called
Celts
Exclamation Point
we
were leg tired and alone but for
the
dutch family
i
remember pointing it out to you
where
the grey clouds were cracking
we
were Illuminated
i
could imagine the photo
i
could have taken
where
you were lit but how the backdrop
was
still ground into murk
by
rain
what
was it we ate
was
it a salmon or a trout
anyway
i
was thinking we’d always been all envy
but
not then
were
we
Brian