Tuesday Poem - Respect by Ron Pretty

Respect

And then there's Steve, black sheep of the everyday,

who would not change his life for any other.

He loves his room at the Albert Clarke Hostel,

would not swap for any poncey house or bungalow

in which some wanker family lives.

He had that once, and kids now scattered who

never visit. That's fine by him. His profile's

not on Facebook, only on police files state to state

for nothing much, he says, just a bit of dealing pot,

a fight or two, or telling the fuzz to get fucked

whenever they try to take him down.

Stopped for drunken driving in an unregistered car

and ordered out, he smiles, 'Say please!' 'Get out

the car,' the cop repeats. He refuses, repeats

his own demand, and finds himself in cuffs

and bruised in the back of a van. All he wants

from life, he says, is stitched in scars on face

and body – from cops or mates whose women

he steals, the freaks he sells his deals to or the pricks

who threw him off the train for being off his face.

But for all his stays in Long Bay gaol, those

psychotic episodes on pot or ice or horse,

he loves his mum as only a prodigal can,

and she loves him for his tinder arms and frail legs,

the wheezing breath in his pigeon chest.

She just wishes he'd remain a slurred voice

on the other end of the phone. She loves

his loyalty, his feverish affection, but is always

terrified he'll visit – with his beard reaching to his chest,

the tats on arms and scars on face and body,

whenever he arrives, he cuts a fearsome figure

in the quiet country town she lives in.

For forty years the cops have beaten him

to pulp for one crime or another;

but now they seldom raid the hostel

where he holds court, perhaps expecting

- hoping – someday soon will be his last.

But Steven skin-and-bones has no regrets

and fewer wants: he has some pot to deal

and every now and then a woman to take to bed

by his blazing drug-fueled eyes. The others in the hostel

tread warily around him for a fuse so short,

a carelessness of consequence that none there now

would care to cross him. At last he has the only thing

he's ever craved or fought for in this life.

I heard Ron Pretty read from his new book 'what the afternoon knows'

(Pitt Street Poetry) at Passionate Tongues recently here in Melbourne -

plus some rip snorter new work for the next book (go Ron!). But he

didn't read this poem. I very much like the way you have to return to

the title to understand what the hero of the poem craves. And, of course,

I live near Frankston, so I see these guys around all the time. You can see

the lost boys, and the angry young men, inhabiting the gaunt, ill-groomed,

crazy-eyed, oath-spluttering, end-of-the-line losers. I give them all a wide

berth and don't make eye contact. They are still angry, after all these years.

There is a world of stories in their anger.

http://pittstreetpoetry.com/ron-pretty/