Four Poems about my late son. If you have read them before I will understand if yiu don’t wish to comment again Rhys took his own life after a fatal overdose of my ex-wife's medication. He died on the day after Boxing Day 2001 aged 29. He left no note, and no clues as to why, although we all have our views. Rhys 'prepared' us for his death by saying that he was dying of cancer. The post-mortem showed no health problems. During those last 3 months we talked often and long - though he steadfastly refused to let me talk to his doctors who had made the 'diagnosis'. One of the things he demanded of me in our talks was that I soon resume writing and making pictures. He was very concerned that I was too much wrapped in my work to the detriment of my own well-being. He was right, of course, I hadn't done anything creative for over 15 years. He is entirely responsible for me being here on the web, because he brought back some of my artwork and poetry which I had left in the family home some ten years earlier. 'To start you off,' he said. His death was the worse thing I have ever endured. Although most people would have thought him a 'difficult' child - he was clinically hyperactive - I couldn't help but love him dearly. -------------------------------------------------------- YEAR 1: WEBMAKER AND FRIENDS Spring. Deep sleep in the early hours jarred awake by the creak-shriek of wood clinging to fast-embedded nail. "Who's there?" through the window garage-ward Silence. Return to sleep. Morning. Every horizontal garage plank removed placed, transformed into a little house in the one solid corner. My small son, smile wavering uncertainly, says, "It was Wood–den Man, Daddy" I scowl, feign anger and smile behind my hand. Summer. Lightly dozing in the warmth roused by a shatter-crash of broken glass splintered on resisting stone. "What's the matter?" towards my den "Nothing, Daddy" Continue doze. Later. In my den a pull-along truck piled higgledy-piggledy high with locks, catches, handles. My son, serious and very sincere says "It was Lobster-man, Daddy" I growl, feign anger and smile behind my hand Autumn. Catching up with admin. tasks disturbed by a shuffle-scuffle of trainer-shod feet across the bedroom floor long before bedtime. "What are you doing?" up the stairs. "I'm tired, Daddy". Return to work. Bed-time and my son's room is a mass of wool woven to an intricate impenetrable web, access for one. My son, guilt chasing glee, says "It was Web-maker, Daddy" I grimace, feign anger and smile behind my hand. Winter. More unconscious than asleep Forced awake by the clamour of the telephone insistent and I know, I know, I know "Yes?" a barely audible whisper "Intensive Care. Come quickly" I run. In the ward, Wood-den Man, Lobster-man has followed Web-maker into his cocoon never to return. Anger is replaced by grief, unfeigned, and no smile now. -------------------------------------------- YEAR 2: ABOUT FACE Morning over The noon sun squats cold as curdled cream in a yoghurt sky powerless to stay the scalpel of a surgeon wind that flays each facet of my face and thrums defenceless sinews exposed and bare. Escaping the seeping wintry chill I sink exhausted in a nook of rock shocking red in a washed-out world. But enough of this: this is not the time for purple patches though the patch is pale and muddy mauve with lowlights dirty-grey. This is a time for ritual exhumation of memories for assessments of circumstance and interment of grief. It is the anniversary of my son’s death at the picnic-point we both loved. Here at the Edge he snapped into place the final pieces of the puzzle of his father’s life. Morning over That vibrant summer of vivid colours and revelations of violent changes when three driven children sought the secret – as they thought – of the missing years and the scars upon my face. They’d found a photograph, late teens, with smooth skin, symmetrical, unmarked in contrast to their father’s present face: a mess-mass of centipedes hiding in hair above a lop-sided lip and tip-tilted chin alive with a multitude of wan millipedes. Scarred. But how, they wanted to know and why and did it hurt bad and when and where and why again. So they learned of the grind of shattered glass on bone, of many extra mouths gushing blood, of friendship and its price - one hundred stitches more or less. And what is more they came to know a man who wandered where he wished who worked enough to make a meal and slept in many different beds with many different girls in rooms, in tents, copses and mountain ferns. They met the man with the endless chat-up lines who swirled the girls with the whirling Waltzers and tended bar better than Tom Cruise; who hoisted heavy barrels of beer into bond and sweated heat-ridden buckets on the blast; who entertained the children on the Camp and gave old ladies a welcome touch of youth. They learned of fights and friendships of protests, profanity and passion of scribbled pictures and scrawled poems thrown away or sold for pints of ale. They saw their father then was a different man to now: secure, settled and warm like an old fire with flames within. Morning over, then, Questions answered my satisfied son smiled his thanks traced the tributaries on my face, hugged me, rose and turned and gazed with fascination at the squirrels sequestered in the trees. Mourning over, now. ------------------------------------------- YEAR 3 : PROMISES Be spare with promises, circumspect: these prim and pretty parcels of pledge are wont to squat egregiously and chase your eyes, or else slyly hide and swell with newly-harboured hopes Take care, be spare, avoid delay; be ready for delivery day. Son-spotted, this pannier of promises gathered and gleaned while panning for nuggets among the spoil heaps of old songs: “I will show you morning On a thousand hills And kiss you And bring you seven golden daffodils.” The pledge is made I will shoulder this promise pack. I will deliver. A problem, son posed, in this sad and cynical age: “Is it OK for boys to kiss their Dads at ten?” It’s OK, more than OK, at ten, It’s just the same, and more, at twenty It’s still fine at thirt … at thir … at th … There will never be time enough for kisses Between the string of sunrise hills and the sorry bunch of daffodils. The frosted earth heaves And the treetops chime in the cold ringing dawn A wisp of weariness drifts by Apprehension curls in a corner of my mind the haze-shrouded morning segues to promised peaks of cloud-sundered hills; Memories of majestic magisterial mountains conspiring in silent communion with mist-soaked dawn dappled dales In this landscape of misplaced modulations Across the shapeless steppes of my mind I sense within the psychic wilderness, pollen-borne and putrid, another self chasing the whispers and scents of long-extinguished lanterns. Last-first seems here appropriate in the final distillation of yellow-headed hopes a promise of daffodils delivered a pledge redeemed and yet I am burdened: bound by promises I will never get to make. ---------------------------------------------------- YEAR 4: VACANT PLACES Bleed in the sink: Mother’s midge-whine words Reverberate and ricochet among the vacant places of my stone-still skull: shocked and disbelieving eyes fixated on a sliver of flesh atop the little mound of mash stained Rorschach-red. Mother grips my sliced thumb tight, Plunges my pain to numbness just below the tap’s freezing flow and slots the fresh rinsed sliver into place. Over her shoulder She directs my sisters to eat, eat, As the wind and bind of bandage Hides this unseasonable horror From sensitive sight. A fresh plate for me In my pristine vacant place Half mother’s mash And sprouts from sisters gleefully given; No meat, thank you, I have had a surfeit of flesh. Sisters, once again all smiles and squirms, Enjoy their meal. I ingest the food And digest along with mother’s words: In future I will tend my pains in private; I will hasten, and when hidden, I will bleed in the sink. This lesson learned long ago: To face a vacant place At a crowded table Among the festive family gathered For the merry meal. I will shake myself Free from fear of a phantom at the feast. I will make myself Defrost my rue-rimed face with a semblance of a smile Or, failing these, I will take myself Aside and hurriedly hide Behind a mardi-gras mask my Gorgon’s grimace and, in silent solitude to save the tinsel from the toxin, I will bleed in the sink. -------------------------------------------------------- WEBMAKER & FRIENDS NOTES This was the first poem in memory of Rhys, written shortly after his death. ABOUT FACE NOTES It was the anniversary of my son’s suicide. I had mourned for a year, and felt it was time for the mourning to end … and remembrance to begin. I chose to visit a favourite family spot and to remember the day when my children, led by my son sought to ‘fill in’ the gaps in my life story. As a starting point they presented a photograph of me as the last piece in the jig-saw. Before my son died this was the lasting memory we shared. PROMISES NOTES If this poem makes any reader feel something for my son, I am glad for that – the saddest thing about his funeral was that the only mourners were colleagues, family and friends of my ex-wife and me. No friends of Rhys could be found. The poem came after a chance remark – careless or callous, I’m not sure which – made by my ex-wife. “He was never happy since he was fifteen” Which was, of course, the age of my son when the marriage broke up and I left the family home. All the feelings of guilt, never deeply buried, re-surfaced and, well, this poem was the result. The incident referred to actually happened. VACANT PLACES NOTES There will be few festive tables without an un-laid vacant place ... where someone dearly loved, and equally dearly missed, should sit ... and yet it seems unfair of the mourner to cast a cloud over the other revellers. They are entitled to their joy and merriment, and those who grieve must cope as best they can. I took my lesson from my mother ... sorrows [she believed] should be taken in solitude, and indeed much of her life in a loveless second marriage was testament to this belief. It's certainly not everybody's way - it may not even be the best way, but now it's mine. The incident referred to - where I sliced the end off my thumb at the Christmas Dinner - actually occurred.