Inheritance

There are places you will never be at home
and times when you should know it
W. N. Herbert

Wallace you are a lucky man of places without people
though for you the empty heart was never whole,
shared lives fragment on unexpected faults
parental inclusions and the spoiled crystal of childhood;

every day is ordinaire, complete and uncomplex as Brown’s cafe
where we once met with mugs of strong sweet tea
to talk, or tawk as it should be both on and off the page,
of who and how to hoik them here to hammer out some verse

and lay down ink. Wallace whaddya think o’ this an’ that
these words burn deep as any Stygian clot spewed out of Aetna’s gash
to splat upon the celluloid and spoil the trace or, better, weld
the recall to the argument and let wha’s happened be wha’s made.

Hearts and hands reach into places people cannae reach
or name wi’ names well known; the private tongue slips out
like love cried, caught, choked back and then laid lightly with its own.
Wallace let the rule of three apply, your name can rest;

I’ll no more use it than abuse guest privilege or stand
in my glasshouse throwing stones. This reclaimed claggy
bottom is where you sleep with refugees and carve
a Cowley pidgin from the block we share alone.


George Roberts
16/12/2002