Neil Perry (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
had_not_lived) wrote2010-06-20 06:56 pm
had_not_lived) wrote2010-06-20 06:56 pm
♕ |[42]| Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied, My Lord.
[VOICE;]
[No preamble, just a deep breath, and then...]
Father, father, where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost.
The night was dark, no father was there,
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep,
And away the vapor flew.
[Long pause, the faint flutter of pages turning.]
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you cam,
And don't have any kids yourself.
[Another pause, and he clears his throat quietly, a little embarrassed at using that kind of language on the Network, but, well. This is poetry and he has a point. Softer, now;]
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
[There's another moment's pause, as though he's going to say something else, before Neil thinks the better of it and cuts off the recording with a click.]
[No preamble, just a deep breath, and then...]
Father, father, where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost.
The night was dark, no father was there,
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep,
And away the vapor flew.
[Long pause, the faint flutter of pages turning.]
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you cam,
And don't have any kids yourself.
[Another pause, and he clears his throat quietly, a little embarrassed at using that kind of language on the Network, but, well. This is poetry and he has a point. Softer, now;]
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
[There's another moment's pause, as though he's going to say something else, before Neil thinks the better of it and cuts off the recording with a click.]
Voice;
Voice;
...I don't know what I'd say to my father, if he had come.
Voice;
Voice;
Voice;
For what it's worth....if he had come, I think he'd be proud of you.
Voice;
Voice;
Voice;
Voice;
Voice;
[Neil pauses, because at the time he'd been angry; and part of him had wanted to hurt his father, though it hadn't been the only or even the main reason for what he'd done.]
I can't imagine that it doesn't hurt him, though. That he doesn't blame himself. I hope he doesn't blame himself, but...
I guess in some ways what's done is done, but I can't help but wish it could be different.
Voice;
[She falls silent for a long few moments, apparently listening to a voice that only she can hear.]
Everyone knows that feeling, I think. We've all done things that we wish we could take back, or that we'd done differently, or...or that we wish never would've come up in the first place, so we never would've had to make a decision for it at all. But we can't change those decisions now, and dwelling on them...it only makes it worse, I think.
Voice;
[There's a little, slightly uncertain laugh here.]
But it feels appropriate to feel a little worse than usual about it, today.
Voice;
They say that once upon a time, if someone were to write a letter and drop it into the Fountain, that somehow it would send the letter home to whatever world one meant to send it to. It's only a story, I know...but it might be worth a try, just the same.
Voice;
Where'd you hear it?
Voice;
Voice;
Voice;
But no matter what happens, Neil, it'll be all right.
Voice;