To be fair, you should have gone to the bathroom to do it
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I did pal. I’ll do a story one day. They were i there.
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“HE WOULD NEVER USE ONE WORD WHERE NONE WOULD DO“
If you said “Nice day,” he would look up at the three clouds riding overhead, nod at each, and go back to doing what- ever he was doing or not doing.
If you asked for a smoke or a light,
he’d hand you whatever he found
in his pockets: a jackknife, a hankie – usually unsoiled — a dollar bill,
a subway token. Once he gave me
half the sandwich he was eating
at the little outdoor restaurant
on La Guardia Place. I remember
a single sparrow was perched on the back of his chair, and when he held out
a piece of bread on his open palm,
the bird snatched it up and went back to its place without even a thank you,
one hard eye staring at my bad eye
as though I were next. That was in May
of ’97, spring had come late,
but the sun warmed both of us for hours while silence prevailed, if you can call
the blaring of taxi horns and the trucks fighting for parking and the kids on skates streaming past silence. My friend Frankie was such a comfort to me that year,
the year of the crisis. He would turn
up his great dark head just going gray until his eyes met mine, and that was all
I needed to go on talking nonsense
as he sat patiently waiting me out,
the bird staring over his shoulder.
“Silence is silver,” my Zaydee had said, getting it wrong and right, just as he said “Water is thicker than blood,” thinking this made him a real American.
Frankie was already American,
being half German, half Indian.
Fact is, silence is the perfect water: unlike rain it falls from no clouds
to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes, to give heart to the thin blades of grass fighting through the concrete for even air dirtied by our endless stream of words.
Philip Levine
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As an aside because men don’t read books and especially fiction in any numbers at all, it’s become quite difficult for new male authors to be published.
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2021/0806/1239380-imelda-may-to-publish-first-poetry-collection/
There’ll be some bleedin rapih pomes in da.
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About dubbalin towwenn
Theres one.
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The Orange by Wendy Cope
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave —
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.
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My wife’s favourite poem, I recall the first time she read it and showed it to me, it was the poem of the day in the Daily Telegraph while we were staying in a mobile home in Dorset during the summer of 2010, I think it was the day after England were knocked out of the World Cup, some poems just speak to you, we’d often quote it
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Some of the old timers will be able to explain the context. I’d love to see the 4 or 5 minutes beforehand.
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In those days the big prize was entered via postcard, Gay would pick it out the following week and ring the winner if they answered a question correctly they won a car.
That night he rang a woman whose daughter had died the day before, tragically, I forget the circumstances,
There was a nun on the panel who said something inappropriate I think, Gat himself was a bit flustered for a second and said ‘why did she die?’ But I think he recovered and handled it incredibly well,
It was amazing TV and Gay showed what an incredible professional he was, it must be up on YouTube?
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The daughter had posted the postcard. She’d been killed then in a car crash the day before the show. Gay said he had to ask the question and did she want to continue. She said she did. She won.
In those days and in that situation if a call came late at night to the house phone people would answer it so the woman answering the phone was not unusual.
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But then Gay was capable of the like of this.
Complicated, flawed man I guess.
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I always suspected that deep down in gay, there was a bollox trying to get out.
It often got out.
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Indeed it did.