For Dominic and Roger Crouch by Okechukwu Nzelu
PN Review 214, November - December 2013
It's exhausting. All day long
at the ready, cocked
to make a difference. Four pairs of eyes
pan the horizon for the right chance. Thrill,
colonial, at being poets
at a conference. Lidless teachers
compound to find an end to the rubbish experience. Being
queer at school is something we all know, but these can't do
what I do. I open and open minds, enunciation alight
with only one or two mistakes. Applause.
Of course. Next, a theatre company we're
very lucky to have, has some
short, punchy scenes I'm sure we'll all appreciate.
Let's see, then.
Only
their kind of sheer talent
can jinx my hubris so. For these
are the very whorls of fine clarity,
the extra special signature steps
of the firm achieve. Almost press your cheek on the cool
of the long rehearsal and the lines,
tight. I'd know it anywhere
though I know it's not in me. And now they charge humility
but they're not done.
Here are some we'd like remembered. By now
I was already won. But tears? Yes:
one boy, fifteen, tortured,
stands on six storeys, wavers, sends
a final text, gets
no response from 999, not being registered
deaf. No intervening angel
mitigates his fall. I understood
it all. And when his father knew, and would not keep,
and strove, and fortified, and sleeved into the fray and on with the fight
I understood it all. But his furious
death pursued me further than tears.
I could not forget
he could not live without his son.
After the conference I saw
the Camerata hamstring Verdi's
Spring (et cetera) to a new thing: Piazzola
won't leave Spring without
raising an eyebrow, must pinch a howl out of Summer, smirk
Autumn and elbow Winter awkward. It was exquisite pain to watch:
they tangoed,
rumbaed and roughed-it through
Vivaldi. I was this-wayed-and-that with them,
and where was a place to settle? All evening I swivelled - dear heart,
I was on meerkat neck for the man
slipped of his sustain. That
father lived on meat-
hooks till he died, all day poised for the requital. And Dominic,
Dominic, could you really want a purchase
on this grinning, texting world, hands
behind its back - such a world,
towering over its best? I think you did,
and might not scorn to know that such a world can heave
so see you go. And it is so
uneasy
without you.
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This poem by Okechukwu Nzelu is taken from PN Review 214, November - December 2013. More poetry, features, reviews and reports are available in the issue and across the back catalogue, accessible to paying subscribers.