Bro's Visit

Parboiling in a hot tub I
would sometimes wonder at the lie
That sent my father from the Clyde
To Singapore
Many the friend who'd swear and sigh
that he did far worse bye and bye,
a murderer for sure.

Of razors did my brother speak
wielded far from Buchanan Street
Fierce as a dog upon its meat
ready to fight
and with a smile so James Dean sweet
Knowing no fear and no defeat,
Sharp and booze-bright

A teddy boy from the estates
where husband leaves and wife berates
He learned that if time never waits
Nor does the law
And ran himself another race
to find a brighter kinder place
Unknown before

Lanterns and houseboats,painted wood,
aged tenements he understood,
A land where any poet could
catch light on water,
and join life's teeming flow and flood,
Reach for a wife and fatherhood
a son, a daughter.

But his fate had its own distress;
Each time to find the phoenix nest
Just as the bright bird deemed it best
to light the fire
And long he wandered, east and west,
Sweetness discarded with the rest,
Forlorn that pyre.

I never saw his Singapore,
And know of Glasgow little more
Than both are rich and both are poor
and have their danger.
Yet there is this; at his heart's core
My father opened up a door
and pushed me through, a stranger.

I read it out to my brother who visited us this weekend, wanting to be sure he didn't mind. To my surprise he wiped tears out of his eyes.

'He knew better,' Bro said, 'Dad knew better.'

I was not expecting any distress. The rumour about Dad killing someone is old; it's telling that I can't say with unqualified conviction that he didn't do it but I really don't think he did, and trust myself not to be swayed by preferential bias. He showed my brother his old straight razors once, which Xavier considered his inheritance. Dad died and the straight razors were never seen again. I don't know if they were just part of my brother's dreamtime, so much of our family life was unreal. Anyway, Bro told me to share the poem.

'It rhymes and shit,' he said, 'so that's all right.'

It was our only sombre moment. We went for a walk on Ravencraig, shouted at The Traitors (Season 2 AUS) played Zombicide, ate very well, talked about prose and publishers, sought alternative moustaches. It was a good weekend, aided by the never ending patience of R, and enlivened by the appearance of the King in Yellow;
https://www.facebook.com/727806753/videos/1392090044846188

Mum was delighted by our antics.

'It is nice that you are still full of fun,' she wrote, 'that age and time haven't changed you two too much.'

Which is a very nice way of telling us that 60-odd years later, she recognises the same pair of idiots she brought into the world.