#creeley

Locate I love you some- where in teeth and   eyes, bite   it but take care not   to hurt, you   want so much so   little. Words   say everything. I love you again, then what   is emptiness   for. To fill, fill. I heard words   and words full of holes   aching. Speech   is a mouth.

Imagine Bessie and Creeley being happy. Kissing and holding hands in public. Declaring their love on rooftops. Eating Ice cream, sitting on the bench watching the town. Imagine the whole farmers strike ending peacefully and Bessie and Creeley leave that godforsaken town. Imagine them moving into a nice home together, with a white picket fence and all. Imagine Seth and Amelia with moving boxes helping out and DL (Yes he’s still alive we don’t talk about ep 9) is standing there writing everything down in his little notebook. 

Imagine Bessie getting a job as a waitress in the local pub and she cries happy tears because for the first time in her life she has a job where people respect her. Creeley hugging her and kissing her on her forehead, smiling that amazing smile. 

Imagine Creeley hanging up his gun for the last time. The scars on his sides never being touched again after the Strike. 

Imagine Bessie telling Creeley she's pregnant. Imagine Creeley’s reaction, excitement, fear and he bursts into tears. Crying, because he never thought he’d have this, he never thought he’d have a home, a wife and children. He never thought he would be a good enough man to ever have those things.

Imagine Creeley when the baby starts to walk, starts to talk, starts to run and crawl and call him “Dadda” 

Imagine Bessie walking into the bedroom late at night from a late shift at the pub, waitressing and finding their baby sucking their thumb and on top of Creeley, and their both sound asleep. 

Imagine when their kids and oh yes they’d probably have two or three more after the first, growing up in a loving, caring protecting home. Giving them all the love that Creeley and Bessie never received. Creeley swearing that he’d never lay a hand on his children like his father. Imagine, Creeley, teaching his kids respect, to love others, to feel with your heart. 

Imagine when their eldest brings home their first girlfriend/boyfriend, don’t you dare tell me Creeley wouldn’t just smile and pull out another chair at the dinner table, but after hours, threatening them, “If you ever hurt my baby I swear I will find you and I will kill you.” 

Imagine Bessie and Creeley with a happy fulfilled life with all their kids and dogs and growing old together, laughing on their porch in their rocking chairs eating ice cream.

I spent a night turning in bed, my love was a feather, a flat

sleeping thing. She was very white

and quiet, and above us on the roof, there was another woman I

also loved, had  addressed myself to in

a fit she  returned. That

encompasses it. But now I was lonely, I yelled,

but what is that? Ugh, she said, beside me, she put

her hand on my back, for which act

I think to say this wrongly.

The Whip  Robert Creeley - Selected Poems