Ode To My Bro

A personal homage!

 

     You’re my brother!

And it’s sad that you don’t come round

For offerings of food –

Perhaps a Sunday roast,

It’s always got to be at your home

Or neutral ground,

     And the coldness

Is like that of stone –

Polished to a high degree of status,

But I’m your brother man –

And though we fought like

Cat and dog when younger;

It was only,

Only a mother’s making

Through her dictating of whom

Gets love, and whom doesn’t,

And unbeknown to you,

I used to sit there

Trying to make a dimple in

My chin just to get the love

That was in abundance for you,

But never,

Never for me.

 

It was always you first

And for me; ‘I’m going to make an example of you.’

Always said after every whipping

And every child abusive beating

But,

     You cannot give me that,

You cannot acknowledge the pain

I have as for you,

You got the love

That treasures every

Matriarchal concern,

But for me; ‘You’re just like

Your Uncle Bobby you – tight.’

 

My bro,

My dear dear dear

Bro,

     I remember times

I stopped you eating faecal

Waste in your potty

When locked inside the room,

My bro,

My dear dear dear

Bro,

     I was given up for adoption

Didn’t you know?

My bro,

My dear dear dear

Bro,

     I am proud to so much

Extent of you,

But every time you deny

Your older brother,

It’s like a slap

From your mother,

Not mine,

For I would never treat

A child like that.

 

The psychological abuse

Extended well into

My own maturity,

     (although she knows

If she touches me again

I’ll kill her),

And for those that

Think all Mothers

Be regarded saintly,

     My mother had the wit

Of Hindley but the difference is,

After torturing me as a child,

She let me suffer

In my adulthood,

Taking in her stride

The maxims of police

And conferring with psychiatry –

     ‘I want to get him sectioned.’

 

     It’s never been your fault bro,

I should have been adopted

When social services had their chance,

And you have to know,

I know of what you witnessed,

For it happened all to us

And baby sisters too,

And no matter what they say

About me and the tarnishing

I have taken,

     I love you bro,

Even though you dragged me

Laughing once through dog shit,

And there is so much I could

Say,

     But I guess for you and I –

Baby sisters too,

We know within ourselves

The deepest forms of humility.

 

Michael J Waite