Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

Raised voices and sarcasm
spite and condescension
easy, understood
fire can be put out, or evacuated.
The cold was worse he said
frigid?
Off the scale – would need its own index – frightening.
Three bedroom house
two adolescents – no alternatives
combatants must share.
Sometimes he wondered
if dawn would arrive, motherless, fatherless, orphaned.

Common sense finally prevailed
over neighbours,
workmates,
friends, congregation members judgement.
Divorce – till death do us not speak
until the older brother’s wedding –
parental duty: family photograph.
Hello Gerald
hello Susan
click, exhale.

No reprise –
death had intervened before his own nuptial
leaving only his mother. It was a relief.

He was one of the country’s richest people –
maybe the richest,
proud of his place of birth
loud in its praise
shy of its tax rules, he lived abroad.
An entrepreneur
and deal maker,
from humble beginnings, very humble.
Before he was a millionaire
he had been a builder.
Before he was multimillionaire
he had been a painter.
Before he was a billionaire
he had been a labourer.

It was an elite course – almost
if medicine and IT were excluded
just 15 of us in total, a sort of brotherhood
and sort of sisterhood if the two women were included
except,
contradicting the zeitgeist neither seemed
interested or impressed with feminism
preferring the company of their classmates to each other.
So, it was a kind of brotherhood with two female members
a sort of brotherhood –
with incessant demands, insane workloads,
near impossibility catalysed cooperation–
ideas, proofreading, encouragement
a sort of academic brotherhood except for Paul
who was rather pedantic at seminars
often focusing on minor flaws
and on occasions illuminating errors not tutor detected.

I gritted my teeth after he’d flossed me and growled to a classmate
“ why does he do that – some petty satisfaction,”
the listener, much wiser said
top student is a horse race which most here could win
so, when speed is equal,
running interference is performance enhancing.