2/18/2018 Poetry by Paul SuttonINORGANIC If only this poem would write itself. Proof I'm no poet – no one at your memorial service believed I was. Science scares me now – how I'd vanish into my head; it was as if ‘dead like that.’ Did that kill you, the daughter you never saw, songs of loss in Irish bars – tearful generalities – your little girl growing up on her own? It's not so wrong to judge. Let's worry for children, the damage they suffer: their absolute need for parents. Your service, the talk of fluorine chemistry, intricate successes. And who am I to write of failure – drifted, wasted – angry as a wasp at a window? Long first-term afternoons, Inorganic lab, Oxford blue into violet. Whirring magnetic stirrers, heart-ache colours, transition metal ions – surely that's magic? Somehow it’s passed me by. Imagine a hot afternoon, somewhere in America, sidewalks and successes, places with tenure and funding and citations of publications. And then, think of a girl who wants to see her father – when he can't ever see her. She's not invisible, but the strongest spectroscopy won’t bring him to light. Well, that’s it – all in the past – who can count the bits? These constant seconds, views from windows, odd thoughts on old conversations – ‘we’re the loneliest men alive!’ you joked – the morning our finals started. No way to say I remember. (for Sean McGrady, 9th April 1964 – 12th August 2017) Bio: Paul Sutton, Born in London, 1964. Five collections - most recent from UK publisher Knives, Forks and Spoons Press: "The Diversification of Dave Turnip", March 2017. "Falling Off" (KFS, January 2015) was Poetry Book Society Recommended Autumn Reading, 2015. US Collection "Brains Scream at Night" (2010) from NY publisher BlazeVox. |
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