Bruce

Bruce

It is not nice to see you,
and I don’t think it ever was,
looking back.

You’re heavy,
like those coal sacks
that fell from favour—
they’re put out on strike
under Labour.

You’re not my sister,
not my brother.
I’d be as blind as Blofeld
to take you as a lover—
and boy, I’ve carried that weight
a long time.

You never give me your money.
You’d rather spend your time
making hovercraft out of waiters,
patting fat pockets,
farting about when the bill’s due—
you’ve not got your wallet with you—
so get the next one.

May many suns
set before the next one comes.
It all adds up, doesn’t it?

And somehow, you’re successful.
There’s this air that everything you earned
was earned fair—
and blonde heads were turned.
All who came your way
were lost, had strayed,
lured by a piper’s piped music
on wind-up clockwork radios you’d play.

They whisper, don’t they?
He’s the one who landscaped his own
back garden—couple of acres—
hefted a spade,
nicked through loam and clay,
installed his own fountain,
if you please.

But no amount
of hollow water features moves me,
or reconstituted trees—
and that includes your wife:
her pretentious literature group,
how she keeps in the loop
by offering home-grown counselling
from wisdom culled
off Swedish matchbox lids.

And your god-awful kids,
grown up now, entitled.
But I had to be there,
pulling out teeth, pulling my hair.
Isn’t one of them in advertising?

Your wife unearthed red onions,
discovered couscous,
used Original Source body wash—
always first amongst us,
quick to accuse, cause a fuss.
Weeks on weeks of passive-aggressive,
and I’m sitting here, stabbing warts.

Look, I don’t want to talk.
I’d let it all fade away.
But you insist on driving here,
coming to stay,
using up time I’d coveted,
husbanded, cupboarded.
I don’t want to drive you to the beach,
drink tea, talk about what used to be,
anything to do with me,
or what you got up to in ’73.
I’ve heard it all.
It was boring then,
it’s boring now.

Let me drum on your face bongos,
offer you my hand—
lend me your eyes and I’ll kick some sand,
wipe away that look of surprise:

To see you is not nice.