Using form: John Beaton, ‘Legacy’ (excerpt)
Inside his penthouse office
he views his Inuit artwork,
carvings from a culture
reduced to buy-and-hold,
then scans the evening city,
his bar chart on the skyline
where real estate has grown his stake
but cost him bonds he’s had to break –
he hadn’t meant to so forsake
his parents. They looked old
that day outside the croft house
when cowed farewells were murmured
as cattle lowed in wind blasts
keening from the sea.
His mother and his father
stood waving from the porch step;
next year she’d crack her pelvic bone,
when winter iced that slab of stone,
and never walk again. I’ll phone,
and he was history.
(…)
He downs his drink and glances
again at his computer –
an email from a neighbour:
Your father died last night.
He’d lately gotten thinner
and seldom had a fire on –
what little peat he had was soft.
Some things of yours are in the loft
so mind them when you sell the croft.
The city lights are bright;
he turns again and faces
his metamorphic sculptures
of walruses in soapstone
that never will break free
from rock that locks the sea waves –
past fused against the future.
Another gin? That’s six. Or eight?
So be it. Clarity’s too late.
His real estate’s no real estate –
he’s left his legacy.
*****
John Beaton writes: “This is a composite. Elements of it are taken from my life but I’ve borrowed significantly from the trajectories of others, especially some of my father’s contemporaries who left Camustianavaig physically but never in their hearts. There are also aspects of the lives of some people I’ve known in business.
I worked out the form so that each stanza would start out steadily and rhythmically for six trimeter lines then build pace for three rhymed tetrameter lines and rein to a halt with a single trimeter line that has a masculine rhyme with line four. Even though they limit word-choices, I thought feminine endings for the first three lines and lines five and six were worth it for the rhythm. And I like how they form a sort of rhyme and closure gradient with lines four and seven to ten.”
John Beaton’s metrical poetry has been widely published and has won numerous awards. He recites from memory as a spoken word performer and is author of Leaving Camustianavaig published by Word Galaxy Press, which includes this poem. Raised in the Scottish Highlands, John lives in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island.
https://www.john-beaton.com/
Photo: “‘V for Vendetta’, United States, New York, New York City, West Village, Skyline View” by WanderingtheWorld (www.ChrisFord.com) is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
