A Haunting Magic

Ever since Sam's post on Thom Gunn I've been thinking about father figures, Hamlet in particular. Also just prior to the Christmas period I purchased Michael Donaghy's collection 'Conjure'. Ever keen to promote synergy I present here a poem that captured my father figure musings and fits rather neatly into our current theme of Magic:

Haunts

Don't be afraid, old son, it's only me,

though not as I've appeared before,

on the battlements of your signature,

or the margin of a book you can't throw out,

or a darkened shop front where your face

first shocks itself into a mask of mine,

but here, alive, one Christmas long ago

when you were three, upstairs, asleep,

and haunting me because I conjured you

the way that child you were would cry out

waking in the dark, and when you spoke

in no child's voice but out of radio silence,

the hall clock ticking like a radar blip,

a bottle breaking faintly streets away,

you said, as I say now, Don't be afraid.

You can listen to the amazing man reading the poem on the poetry archive here, enjoy.

X

ps, happy new year and all that.