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awakening
July 2008 
After Introduction to Philip Larkin
Posted on Mar 7th, 2008
by 
Bruce
Bruce
Like every one,
each moment strained against the terror of
the echoed whispers of what wasn’t done,
ill-perfumed, stained unworthy of that love
thirsted for by each daughter, every son,
bursting wounded, not equipped for it,
into the family way, coping they fend
with frantic needing and unending shit
from bairns and from each other, and so send
the tale down generations to the pit.
And this be worse,
if true enigma, partner, parent, child,
becomes, as with a glance, the enemy,
though integral to life, seen as a wild
berserker, heaped with calumny
even as ached for, undefiled.
II
Life, experienced as interpreted,
offers apparent poverty of choice.
The baby must be fed, the landlord paid,
and stifled, still, the unwelcomed voice.
It contends against these webs of inference
that buzz over the vital silence we
inhabit timelessly, pares that defense
driving the glance away and desperately
shoring up the fence.
We work from either side, the folks and me,
conspirators despite appearances.
Though I fucked up their lives, still, covertly
we worry at the bindings, taking chances,
breaking rule by rule and working free.
III
We share the family room, as mother tends,
she with that cigarette and a brandy.
We both know what she's doing, where it ends,
don't speak of it lest someone gets angry,
keeping embarrassed silence while she mends.
I know <something> of her gnawing shame,
remember fragments of admonishments
that rang yet with her mother’s voice, the same
humiliation. And I sense
that, as for my sins, she, too, shares the blame.
I'd say to her I know she did her best,
that anything that hurt I now release,
hoping only that she can find rest
in what we share, be blessed to finally cease
lashings of censure. But perhaps she guessed
that, faint, filling the moment, was but peace.
Bruce Tanner
January 2008
each moment strained against the terror of
the echoed whispers of what wasn’t done,
ill-perfumed, stained unworthy of that love
thirsted for by each daughter, every son,
bursting wounded, not equipped for it,
into the family way, coping they fend
with frantic needing and unending shit
from bairns and from each other, and so send
the tale down generations to the pit.
And this be worse,
if true enigma, partner, parent, child,
becomes, as with a glance, the enemy,
though integral to life, seen as a wild
berserker, heaped with calumny
even as ached for, undefiled.
II
Life, experienced as interpreted,
offers apparent poverty of choice.
The baby must be fed, the landlord paid,
and stifled, still, the unwelcomed voice.
It contends against these webs of inference
that buzz over the vital silence we
inhabit timelessly, pares that defense
driving the glance away and desperately
shoring up the fence.
We work from either side, the folks and me,
conspirators despite appearances.
Though I fucked up their lives, still, covertly
we worry at the bindings, taking chances,
breaking rule by rule and working free.
III
We share the family room, as mother tends,
she with that cigarette and a brandy.
We both know what she's doing, where it ends,
don't speak of it lest someone gets angry,
keeping embarrassed silence while she mends.
I know <something> of her gnawing shame,
remember fragments of admonishments
that rang yet with her mother’s voice, the same
humiliation. And I sense
that, as for my sins, she, too, shares the blame.
I'd say to her I know she did her best,
that anything that hurt I now release,
hoping only that she can find rest
in what we share, be blessed to finally cease
lashings of censure. But perhaps she guessed
that, faint, filling the moment, was but peace.
Bruce Tanner
January 2008
Access: Public
