Web: suejohns.co.uk Email: cornishsue@gmail.com
On receiving a pair of tin earrings for my 40th birthday
Small velvet box
Proffers a pair,
to hang from lobes:
resurrecting buried sounds:
fathoms down.
Three centuries worth
of Cornish life (would surface)
in dirty water drowned.
The miners, treasured, ´Cousin Jacks´
From Spain, New Zealand,
Norway to The Cape;
their skills were coveted, unmatched.
South Crofty, outliving
suffering siblings, rode the slump.
The bitter pill, disproven remedy,
joined them: silenced the pump.
We break this thought and raise
a glass; to celebrate,
mark the day I pushed, red faced
from wet and dark:
gave my first Celtic whoop!
This gift, turned in my palm;
produces song, an elegy, a Wesleyan hymn.
Its frame a manicure that pens
of maidens on the dressing floor:
sifting, bringing the hammer down.
My path, less worn;
a well-schooled journey,
post learning liberty:
though warned of peppered shafts
long overgrown.
Enter my body (Father and son
turned rivers red with sweated toil)
This painful beauty,
last Crofty tin,
through small and bloodless holes.
To the men who share their poetry
To the men who dare to drink with me
To the men who somehow set me free
To the men who are the greatest fun
To the men who dance with me till dawn
To the love that dare not speak its name
And to the men who´ve made me come
They deserve a poem all of their own
To the men who taught me how to care
To the men to whom I´ve been unfair
To those who were beyond compere
And let me wash the street from your hair
Because a brother, is a brother, is a brother
To the men who were just hapless thugs
Who spread my legs but shared their drugs
To the men that I can´t thank enough
To the man who brought about my birth
To a sibling buried under earth
To the promise of a constant love
To the men who liked to share my clothes
To the men whose secrets I have known
To those that I can trust with mine
And let me take that needle from your arm
Because a brother, is a brother, is a brother
To the men who conjure up a sigh
To the men that I have let slip by
To the men I only ever kiss goodbye
To the men who couldn´t take the pace
Who fucked my arse
But couldn´t look me in the face
To the men that I did not deserve
To the men who were afraid of blood
To those who left without a word
To the men who are my closest friends
To the men who´ll be there at the end
To the men included in this poem
To all the men I´ve ever known
And if you´re out there baby, pick up a phone
Because a brother, is a brother, is a brother.
(For Labs 1963 to 2008)