Day 32 - 1st Feb
Peredur
(in memory of Dave Hurst)
Why didn't we tell you how handsome you were?
So evident—
In black and white,
Now I see it.
Craven,
Or simple envy perhaps,
Fear and too-low self-worth
Of the modern man,
Unacknowledged—
Pungent and jealous protectors of our own goodwill.
They reek
And make us shiver
As children do.
We all shiver sometimes
(When we don't want to).
That is the way of it.
Locked away,
You had your shadowlands
Where we could not stay.
Where you could not stay.
Tiger country.
That is also the way of it.
Once you said to me,
On a yacht in the Andaman Sea,
Didn't I find my life “too transient?"
I wish I'd asked you what you really meant—
In the privacy of that massive heart of yours,
What you really meant.
I thought about that
For a long time.
That comment,
A rejoinder,
Issued with a force and love
You struggled to find for yourself.
You had that effect on people.
You never took the piss
In any real way—
Only ever surface play.
You always seemed to know the way—
For others,
For your brothers.
I loved you for it.
I would have asked you back—
What you meant,
And under what balcony you were
Hell-bent
To stand—
And why.
You and me, Dave—how ‘bout it?
Me, you and Molly had a chat once
“I cry when people say nice things about me”
I said them anyway
You cried completely
So put this in your pipe and smoke it.
Because many men die for want of it
I could’t move in your circles
But I loved you.
Looked up to you.
Couldn't fathom how you were you
Was intimidated by you,
Berated by you,
Celebrated by you.
As we all were
Of a fashion
When I found out - and said more
nice and true
things about you.
you cried
Days after you died
Onto my thighs
I felt it.
such drops from the other side
are worth an earthly ocean
In my thigh.
that is were Dionysius goes and grows
another thing you never made me feel small over
in fact - a foot taller over
was the love of music and art,
because that is what sets me apart.
one turbo to another.
always encouraging others.
Your tears will be twice-born from that thigh
I place hand under yours now
and swear it.
You and me Dave
How ‘bout it?
From the gallows
You brought back
That most precious
of things:
Brilliant craic.
Absolutely.
brilliant.
Craic.
(for a Welshman)
And your painted-on armor longed to crack
Over the 8 pack.
I wish you could have washed it off,
but such things are not so neatly parsed away—
To the Balkans of the mind.
And, I hope you don’t mind (haunt me if you must),
But I will keep
saying nice things about you—into the wind and dust.
Through me
And others like me—
That will be your lasting legacy.
We breathe them onto the wind,
not for iron man.
But Calon lân.
Kindness.
That was your unaccepted superpower.
All else—armamentarium.
But that, your nuclear arsenal—
That exploded into hearts,
and the hearts, of course, of your children—
was kindness.
A timebomb that will go off
when they walk down the aisle,
or fix smiles,
as you did.
You and me, Dave—
How ‘bout it.
You jittered your knee
rampant ADHD
like me
turbo energy
“why is everyone
going so fucking slow?”
Don’t they know?
there is stuff to be done
prizes to be won
go-karts to be spun
around the funhouse?
That type of drive
Herculean
Sisyphean
(Not really Antipodean)
Hacked from colliery and emerges
As furnace
Will root for coast
And surface, coal streaked and slackened
And make it's way
To the high land
To raise its own toast.
You, my friend
Are a phenomenon of the high places
”No parent should have to bury their child”
Your mother said to me
as she looked upon my baby girl,
a pearl, in the blackness.
We all traded in cliche and similie
Because they are true for a reason
and as you presided
over all six seasons
from a high place
in Christ Church Chapel
denuded of all your Chattels
and all the better for it.
nowhere else to go
nothing left to earn, own or owe
I saw you at last.
in black and white.
and reckoned
you did not go gentle into that night
You raged a wee bit i think
As was your right
Your turbo birthright
I love you for that
For I know your fight
All too well.
Beneath you
At the bend of the river
your grieving widow and children
all in black
the trio held out hands for each other
and on the other side
the quartet danced
all in white
on the beach behind.
You wanted to go
To Everest
what called you to such high places?
expedition or perdition?
miyo langsanma or l’appel du vide?
abundance and abyss
despair and bliss
You are at the foothills
Of something much greater
than Chomolungma now
you will find what you sought there,
an immovable goddess standing
with the peace that passeth all understanding.
A hard going you will have of it to get there
As pilgrim passing through all that was arid and unlived and unloved in yourself
well beyond the verge of Jordan
and arrive in the valley
amidst the scree of this life.
Gather at nightfall for the puja,
All the compliments you could not take in will come to you now,
wind in the prayer flags. strung together like bunting.
All the love you were owed
The wind pays back what was bestowed
To the very last cent.
it is transient.
it is necessary payment
and as you lie
on the face of that mountain
Open thou the crystal fountain
of tears.
The men of the valley will then come,
singing
“no more peaks for you!
for men are not made of iron
but the dew
of the tears they did not cry
on the fields of their children’s eyes”.
They will ask you
“Who does the grail king serve?”
And you will say - utterly spent now
“I am peredur
I have bled my lance
I took manys a chance
I served love.
Ran away from and into it.
Broke my heart for it
Bled for it
Fled from it
Birthed it
Killed it
Lay drunk in the dark for it
Swam through the sharks for it
Stole for it
made the bell toll for it
I served love and because I bleed
Let me in
my ghost is fed,
my heart is bled
but my soul
my soul is thirsty”
and they will say
those men of the valley
"Ah! Tyrd i mewn!
In you come hursty”
Niall Campbell