The work of Brady Riddle, October’s featured poet, probes the complex relationships between “Fathers and Sons” with tender clarity.
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Fathers and Sons
I
What must Telemachus, that poster boy
for absent fathers, have felt the first time
Penelope directed him to his father’s field
to ready the soil for growing season? He, barely
grown himself, did not know handle from blade,
how deep to set the till or that the stones
he picked and cast away, his father put there
to moisten hardened ground. How many questions
plowed through his mind, sowing seeds of
struggling resentment and obligatory love
all sons must root deeply for their fathers?
What must Telemachus, that champion of sons
for single moms, have felt the first time he watched
a man approach his father’s door,
intent to enter that manless chamber and renew
honor in their hearts? How old was he
the first time this happened? Did he cock off
to the guy, resentment and oedipal fury fueling
him to plan his own guerrilla warfare,
or was he quietly stifled, torn between a father
he did not remember and need for a man to guide him?
What drove Telemachus into an abbreviation
of his father’s fated journey, guided like two negative
poles by the invisible hands of an envying god
unwilling to connect two coinciding paths on a map?
Strung along by heresy and desperation, his father
dutifully weeping in the arms of another goddess
as he drove his blood-driven oars deeper into
a sea that bore no end at each port of call?
What about when his dad dragged back into town,
a beggar, full of suspicion and stories,
to win his father-starved heart, and secrets there
would be no explanation for? How did Telemachus
trust this man he had no recollection of
other than the stone-set reassurance his mother had
that his father would return, that he was honorable,
a great man that knew the direction home, would
plant his feet on his own soil though it cost him
all of his men and his ship and a son’s misadventure?
What inherent tie drew back the bow and drove
each arrow into needing parts of greedy men
alongside his father who slew suitors not in the name
of his son, but for honor and his own kingdom?
Honor his son, not him, preserved in absence, land his son
not him, sowed and reaped for twenty years, while he
had sown elsewhere his own aggrandizing seeds
blown off course in life.
II
And what were the last thoughts Icarus held
before giving his youth to the sea? Was it of Daedalus
genius of stone and wood, arrogant artist who cared
for his media and not an apprentice’s success?
Was it: can you fix me after this?
After all, Icarus had to live his father’s sins
inside bricks and mortar and seclusion, inside
Minos’ twisted puzzle.
III
And what about you and me?
I did not need your lessons on
how to build a house: to draw a nail into wood,
to rip a straight line, or how to hang another wall.
That was the most convenient way
through absence, and time.
But there we were in the living room,
two grown men, waxing tears
down our faces to plummet to the floor,
trying to construct a bridge from history
we could not grasp.
All you wanted to do was lift off with our new wings
carry us somewhere safe from the past
avoid it like it was some beast we could, at best,
forget–you wept desperate times on empty beaches
but never the Circes and Calypsos that shadowed us.
I figured out the way through this maze our life is,
unknotted the walls that wove us round and round.
Standing at the edge of the vast sea, could you have rather
produced some key than gone through the motions
burning more time we did not have, to let us out.
All I wanted to do was mount the wall, plant my feet
on firm ground–to know that I was out.
I am willing to brave angry water, angry gods
build a boat, follow the map I have made
to get securely home.
~~~
Prodigal
This time, all the rain
that scoured farmlands
green again purging the dust
and the heat and the fallow
and the past from both our eyes
keeps the moment present. Crisp.
In this environment new skin grows
thinning the scar, but skin
never forgets.
Forgiveness is a thin, tight thread
sometimes promises
sometimes burns
each step, heel to toe
not to heal the soul
not a threat to lose your footing
but to perform the balancing act
holding the smell of rough leather
wood chips and Marlboros in primal tissue
and fight the frontal lobe
to forget your name every time
the phone rings
These Sisyphean beads of memory
drawn across the forehead:
all of the straw men
to fill the shadow of shoes
young sons are supposed to
aspire to fit.
I cannot stand in front of you
to be the strong man
you’ve made me to be.
That person is for another generation.
I can give you that.
~~~
Not Simon’s Boat
It’s been two generations of cross-chop
now another effort to bridge the sea
between my father and me.
An echo of other botched trips:
gut-twisting sea sickness that is not his
hours afloat toward the unknown
the roiling wake behind, another divorce,
glowing scar the ocean will not swallow;
one we can not leave behind.
All he wants to do with me is drop a line
into my life, secure me. Show his mettle.
He uses everything in his tackle:
years tell him the hook, my marriage
Work compromise love
he tries to tell me now
experience, my first born–like me to him–
use fair judgment
be consistent…
the weight.
When I was five, he pulled in whoppers
from my grandfather’s stock tank.
Small pond, little effort.
Continents apart on the same boat,
cast, reel, cast…a tangle, a pull, a backlash,
another wave lifts, drops us
seeking a connection that isn’t there.
That ungiving sea,
too much water moving under us
The fish, the words, the time
we cannot keep.
Each one held momentarily
then thrown back.
~~~
Last Stop Before Arrival
The storm just east of Memphis
told us we’d better slow down
the fuel light pulled us
to the next and only station
for forty miles.
Lightning and a solid wall of clouds
held the western sky at bay.
Rain began to pummel
the awning over the pumps and this whole thing
felt like a mistake.
The tomatoes and the weedy yard needed tending
vacation had just begun
the lake was warm enough
to invite us in for as long as we wanted and there was
no threat of hail or the resounding heat
that awaited us the other side
of this black and scarring interjection.
We cover half the continent
with half hearted obligation to two generations
each with little understanding of why
I’d rather be pumping gas in the stony rain
tempting electricity’s crooked tongue
than to end the next six hours.
Brady Riddle hails from the Houston, Texas area. He currently resides in Shanghai, China, where he has been teaching secondary English at Shanghai American School for the past five years. He holds an M.A. in Literature from the University of Houston at Clear Lake, Houston, TX. His accolades include: awarded poet in Sol Magazine, an e-zine, and MarrowStudent Literary Anthology, published by the University of Houston at Clear Lake; featured poet and presenter at the 2002 and 2003 Texas Humanities Writers Conference, the 2004 Houston Poetry Festival and the 2004 Houston International Poetry Festival, and Featured Writer, Khayaali Artists Evening, Muscat, Oman, May 2010. His work can also be found in Lean Seed, published by San Jacinto College in Houston, TX, Ottawa Arts Review, published by the University of Ottawa Press, Westend Poetry Journal in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and most recently in A Shanghai Poetry Zine in Shanghai, China.
Spittoon Monthly publishes one exceptional short story or set of poems at the beginning of every month.