The Man Who Spoke in Whispers

A friend who died.

(for Jim Ducker)

The growth plundered your voice,

robbing it of tone; you spoke

in well-articulated whispers, inhaling

through that tube thing in your throat.

You shone, in spite of it all.

No self-pity, even near the end,

after years of speaking to us

in breaths the way you did -

yet you had a voice, old friend.

Always the bright guy at the bar,

you brought a twinkle

even to a whisper; a susurrus of wit

would penetrate the tedious tones

of those for whom EastEnders

and the latest from The X Factor

provided fodder for barroom babble.

Struggling to be heard but stubbornly

winning with smiles and quips,

you were never less than sparky

with your crackling one-liners

and the percussion of your Good Advice.

Quite suddenly you died;

thirteen months ago you died.

You would not wish me to reach

for a soppy synonym.

You did not pass away:

you died, you died, you died.

I handled your affairs -

so long ago, it seems;

but time and distance are

such fragile things, and grief

is no respecter of them:

whisper its name

and it will return to you.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

but sometimes "soppy synonyms" are most appropriate....
as I have, I am sure Jim will be the recipient of many more poems...
they never leave us, those who have.
life is so fragile...and this poem represents that and such a stirring tribute to your friend.
j.

[Andrew John]

Thank you so much for this, Jacob.

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn..]

A powerfully worthy tribute to a man whom you so obviously cared for deeply and was an important part of your life, if I do not go too far in daring to say so ... Very touching piece of writing, well executed, errr, written ...

Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

[Andrew John]

Thank you so much for this, Martin Thomas. You went so back into my stuff. Wow! I appreciate your comments.

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham]

Marvin ... My Dad was Martin ... And Thomas is not really a name, or wasn't until around 1500 CE ... Thomas is Hebrew & Aramaic word for Twin, as also is the Greek word didymus, which also means twin ... So Thomas who is called Didymus is correctly rendered as Twin who is called Twin, a message in the Gospels exclaiming quitetly that Jesus had an identical twin brother, and he did: Judas, who wrote the book of Jude ... Judas, Judas Iscariot? ... Iscariot literally means zealot, and all the sect of James and Jesus's form of Judaism were, in fact, zealots, and Jesus, or Jesus (one of them at least) was executed for sedition against the Roman Empire, and nailing a man to a tree was the Roman way of making examples of seditionists ... And so on the day of First Fruits, The Feast of Unleavend Bread, & Pentecost, whereby all male Jews were commanded to be in Jerusalem to observe said feasts, the surviving identical Twin had to have been present and seen by all, many perhaps thinking or claiming the surviving Twin to that one who was executed and risen from the dead ... Poppycock! ... But, that surviving Twin zealot would have been teaching the same radical beliefs that his Twin brother died fight for, no doubt ...

Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

[Gee]

A wonderful tribute to a friend now gone. You paint a picture with your words, one of a man whose fire would not be quenched.
A fine piece of writing Andrew

[Andrew John]

Thanks you for this, G. Long time ago that I wrote it, and I had to reread it. Not up to me to comment on my own stuff, but this did give me a strange feeling, coming back to it so long after I last saw it.