Castle Hawk by Brian Edwards
Brian Edwards December 8, 2009 at 1:28PM Castle Hawk
"And from our opposite continents we wave and call.
Everything has happened." ----- Sylvia Plath, "The Babysitters"
Over a decade since we played at Castle Hawk.
Rain lashed down all day, from tee to bunker
to nineteenth hole
But we wore tee-shirts and hauled those clubs round
where we didn't belong.
Watching the tweed and stripes, your eye for mischief
broke the clouds.
Cruel brother, you could skin fish with that tongue.
In jeans at the oak-beamed clubhouse bar
too short, too loud,
You filled the room.
Drinking drinking, a one bedroom flat, football on the radio,
Nietzsche on our minds.
You couldn't cook but your cupboards always offered
A sandwich, an orange, a place to hide from lovers and life.
Windows open wide to rile the curtain twitchers next door,
beating walls down with disapproval,
And when the police came you were first outside fighting
truncheons with common sense,
And when your love-heart tattoo came out like a tomato
you gave it a nickname, wore short sleeves for a year,
And when you woke up in the wrong bed swearing
never again, never again,
It was just a story to tell.
My brother, before I left you at the nighteenth hole
with a bourbon and coke and a bar tab,
Before I traded you in for a continent and a collection
of books,
Before divorce scrawled your lipsticked name
on a mirror,
Before divorce put a fist through your glass
chest,
Before divorce poked vipers through the window
of your skull,
Before divorce put your liver in a glass, covered
in weeds,
Before you tried to cut off your arm,
tried to eat off that one word,
her name, five letters, ingrowing,
We were two brothers in tee-shirts,
waiting for something to happen.
~
Brian Edwards
Castle Hawk
"And from our opposite continents we wave and call.
Everything has happened." ----- Sylvia Plath, "The Babysitters"
Over a decade since we played at Castle Hawk.
Rain lashed down all day, from tee to bunker
to the nineteenth hole,
We wore tee-shirts and hauled those clubs round.
Watching the tweed and stripes, your eye for mischief
broke the clouds.
Cruel brother, you could skin fish with that tongue.
In jeans at the oak-beamed clubhouse bar
too short, too loud,
You filled the room.
Drinking drinking, one bedroom flat, football on the radio,
Nietzsche on our minds.
You couldn't cook but your cupboards always offered
A sandwich, an orange, a place to hide from lovers and life.
Windows open wide to rile the curtain twitchers next door,
beating walls down with disapproval,
And when the police came you were first outside fighting
truncheons with common sense,
And when your love-heart tattoo came out like a tomato
you gave it a nickname, wore short sleeves for a year,
And when you woke up in the wrong bed swearing
never again, never again,
It was just a story to tell.
My brother, before I left you at the nighteenth hole
with a bourbon and coke and a bar tab,
Traded you in for a continent and a collection
of books,
Before divorce scrawled your lipsticked name
on a mirror,
Before divorce put a fist through your glass
chest,
Poked vipers through the window of your skull
Put your liver in a glass, covered in weeds,
Before you tried to cut off your arm,
tried to eat off that one word,
her name, five letters, ingrowing,
We were two brothers in tee-shirts,
waiting for something to happen.
~
Reader Comments (36)
i quite like the elegy, but i hate golf. i think i would cut out the self-reference and concentrate on the brother.
Thanks Pete. With all respect, the poem is about the relationship, not just the brother.
And expressing a like or dislike of golf is about as relevant as sharing your opinion of T-shirts.
i think i'll just ignore that, brian.
This comes up in my photo critique group with astounding regularly, and has been discussed in excruciating detail over the years. It happens when photographers must critique visual work portraying subject matter / content which does not appeal to them, or that they loathe, even. I submit that it can indeed be relevant to the critique offered, and is a worthy data point. In the photo world, it can be considered a high compliment, when a person who is known to loathe flower shots, for example, will take the time to critique your flower shots as shots, and not as the flowers!
Shari
I was reading with what pete said in mind about cutting the self-reference. I find a good balance between the we, the you, and the me. I'll read again more closely.
I think it's important to leave the two people in it, if it's about the relationship, naturally, but this feels rushed and unfinished, I think it can be a very difficult task to encompass an issue that you feel so strongly about, duh, which is what poetry is suppose to be about, to a certain extent, I suppose. However, on that topic, I think you need to slow down, take your time and let this say without stating it, let your heart not completely take it over and sow the meaning behind the words, rather than shouting them, which is difficult to do, no doubt. I think this has a lot of potential B, and as for the golf, I think it is an interesting sport to use, it reflects a lot of sterotypical, well worn images and thoughts, i.e. pete = hates golf, many ppl do! It can be boring as all hell if you aren't interested in it or playing it (in my case, it's just down right frustrating either way). But I like that the two brothers are on the grass chessboard and I think you could play off of that, use it through out the poem to really convey what you want. The last line doesn't do it for me, it's too weak of a tie to the game.
Shari, with all respect, a photo of a flower is a photo of a flower. This is not a poem about golf.
Thanks for detailed comments Erika. This poem has been worked on for about a year, and the rushed, unfinished, emotionally charged aesthetic is exactly what is desired. I will bear in mind what you say though.
B.
Bite your tongue!!!!!!! But, I suspected you'd say that. Flowers was a poor example to use in a non-photography community, sorry. A photo of flowers, or a photo with flowers in it, does NOT have to be about flowers– far, far from it. Sometimes a flower is just a cigar. Visual artists make use of literary devices such as metaphor and conceits just as writers do.
Yes, of course this poem is not about golf, which is perhaps more obvious than the concept of a flower picture not being about flowers. A photo with a nude person in it does not have to be about nudity. A poem with golf in it does not have to be about golf, but you are using golf (among many other devices in the poem), to illustrate and illuminate the something else.
When a photo reviewer doesn't like flowers or nudity in a photo that is about something else altogether, that knowledge does tell me something about where they are coming from as a critic.
Not sure I'll be able to make my point here. I suspect, but might be way off base, of course, that you're perhaps too close to the subject matter or still very attached to the poem. Of course it's not about golf. Nor is it about flowers.
I'm still reading the poem.
"Cruel brother, you could skin fish with that tongue"
Fantastic line.
I've never played golf before. Unless mini-golf counts. wink wink
"where we didn't belong" You have been illustrating this with several images. Do you need to tell it?
"You filled the room." same question with this.
You have been illustrating both of these up to the point which you then tell them.
I find the concepts of "being where one doesn't belong" and of an "individual filling a room" to be fairly archetypal, such that I would enjoy experiencing the more illustrative approach.
But perhaps this illustrating+telling is integral to the voice of the N, so I shall read again with that in mind.
"Windows open wide to rile the curtain twitchers next door"
Curtain twitchers! Luv it. So visual!
Thanks for the detailed looks Shari, your input much appreciated. Not sure if you remember this poem from way back when, but you offered a lot of useful input on that occasion too.
Despite the subject matter and style of delivery (and my response to Pete, for which I apologise if any offence was caused), the author is not in such an emotional state that he is unable to objectively consider criticism. As I stated above, the poem has been around quite some time. To my ear, the parts that tell, including those that tell and show and tell again, are consistent with the narrative voice.
I won't deny that I am fond of the poem, but I am listening and considering all of your thoughts and ideas.
Brian,
This is full to the brim with what makes two men brothers. The poem's form is right for the content. There are echoes of Robert Lowell in here. Men seldom talk of their brothers which strengthens the images. This goes way past the normal intellectual wittiness. The relationship and all its tug-and-pull comes through for me. Even the golf referencing is perfect for the t-shirted conflict with tweed and stripes. For me this read brings image and language into a bigger stew. This works for me and yes it is a matter of taste.
The caps works for me as it nods to the traditional. My metrical sense calls for 'the' before nineteenth in L3. The sentence needs some unstressed syllables?
'Cruel' modifying brother seems hard, a bit out of context and the 'something' in the last line is weak. It needs to be something with more substance. Something perhaps that echoes more clearly Plath's 'everything'.
This poem has stayed with me through several reads. That speaks to its content and its craft.
Won me over.
larry
I enjoyed this. One detail that made me smile was the
In jeans at the oak-beamed clubhouse bar
too short, too loud,
You filled the room.
ambiguity of 'too short, too loud' to either the surroundings or the agonist. It works both ways somehow.
I find the last stanza with the repetition a little too 'preachy' - too full of rhetoric - for comfort. It makes me grimace a bit - although I do like the steady intensification of the detail and the language. I would happily lose the lines
Before divorce scrawled your lipsticked name
on a mirror,
Before divorce put a fist through your glass
chest,
Before divorce poked vipers through the window
of your skull,
- the whole effect feels stronger to me without them.
atb D
I've been pondering the repetition, and I do like it, but want to work it
Before I
traded you in for a continent
and a collection of books,
Before divorce
lipsticked your name on a mirror
put a fist through your glass chest,
poked vipers through the window of your skull,
put your liver in a glass, covered in weeds
Before you
tried to cut off your arm,
tried to eat off that one word,
her name, five letters, ingrowing,
Before we were two brothers in tee-shirts,
waiting for something to happen.
I like the last line. A lot.
takes me right back to the beginning of the piece, without wacking me over the noggin.
Yes, B, I definitely remember it from days of yon. Not sure what has changed, but I do feel it's richer today, whilst I don't feel that it's ready to be finally abandoned (as John (A.E. Plastic) says, "No poem is ever finished, just finally abandoned."
I think the tone of this perfect. Some genuinely superb lines contained within. Just the right mix of humour and pain. You could lose some of that anaphora at the end, but then it does succeed in building a climax.
james
I remember this Brian. Love it...It's still so powerful. I like Shari's edit. And I think there is at least one too many images in the Divorce section, I'd pick my two favorite and save the others for the next brother poem! The arm cutting bit gives me goosebumps. Love the title, love the epigraph, love the tight protective voice, Well Done
"You couldn't cook"
would you consider
You could not cook
Thanks for all the interest in this one, and especially for the interesting and useful comments.
I have posted a re-write, most of which is an edit of the last section. I tried to follow Sue's advice of choosing my favourite two images and cutting the other, but I really couldn't -- it just feels right to me to keep them all in there.
Larry, I was a little unsure of your comment regarding "Cruel brother" --- by hard, did you mean in terms of sound or meaning? It is supposed to be sarcastic, playful . . . ? I had considered "Oh cruel brother"?
I also considered "just two brothers" in penultimate line, thinking an extra beat would help the scan. Still not 100% sure . . . .
Again many thanks all.
B.
~
Shari, our posts crossed. I'll think on that new suggestion.
I did also have the thought Sue expressed, about mebbe one less in the divorce section, but I did like it being over the top
Yeah, kinda my thinking too.