Poetry Forum

(First Draft)

I imagine you receiving the call.
Standard run of the mill type of job.
Old man. 80. found unresponsive,
Face down in the “quiet room”
Calm and considered you attempt
To decipher the hysterical rambling
Of a half drunk son bent double over
His already dead dad. I imagine
Despite the nature of your job
The control room that day was
Rather jubilant. England through
To the Semi Finals, a country united
On beer and optimism. My brother
Awash with football fever, tipsy
And sun lashed immediately anchored-
He tells me about your voice, how it
Was soft yet direct, how you told
Him to check for a pulse,
how to perform CPR
He tells me he thinks he “fucked it up”
That he pushed too hard on the chest
That he shouldn’t have been so drunk-
Then its back to you. How you asked
Him his name, how you told him
To “not stop” that the air ambulance
Is on the way, how your voice was
Soft yet direct. And somewhere
Within the trauma he reflects
On the absolute honesty in your voice.
I have no silly thoughts that you
Would have any recollection of that call
It was just one of a hundred you’d
Of taken that night, but that’s really
Not the point. It was your voice. Soft
And direct and that even during
The most violent of his nightmares
When the death-stare of my father
Burrows deep into my brother sleep
You, the perfect stranger are still
Speaking. Softly yet direct.

.
Hi brokenbridge,

enjoyed the read. It's an affecting story, and the simple language makes it all the more convincing.
I did find the solid 'chunkiness' of it a bit off-putting, likewise beginning each line with a capital.
Perhaps break it up into verses?

The reported speech elements seem a bit inconsistent, for instance surely ' the air ambulance Is on the way'
is a direct quote?

Not sure if 'already dead' (L8) isn't a premature revelation, especially so soon after 'unresponsive' (L3).
Is it non-responsive or unresponsive? Just curious.

I like the juxtaposition of "quiet room" and 'calm', not to mention 'beer and optimism'.

(L37 - brother's sleep ?)

I've taken the liberty of trimming a bit, it's easier than going line by lie with explanations.


I imagine you receiving the call. Standard,
run of the mill. Old man. 80. unresponsive,
Face down in the “quiet room.” Calm
and considered you decipher the hysterical
rambling of a half drunk son, bent double
over His already dead dad.

I imagine despite the nature of your job,
the control room that day was rather jubilant.
England through to the Semi Finals,
a country united on beer and optimism.
My brother awash with football fever,
tipsy and sun lashed, anchored immediately -

He tells me about your voice:
how it was soft yet direct,
how you told him to check for a pulse,
how to perform CPR

He tells me he thinks he “fucked it up”
that he pushed too hard on the chest
that he shouldn’t have been so drunk -
Then its back to you.

How you asked him his name,
how you told him to “not stop”
that the air ambulance "is on the way",
how your voice was Soft yet direct.

I have no silly thoughts you remember him.
Just one of a hundred calls that night,
But when the death-stare of my father
burrows deep into his sleep
You, are still Speaking. Softly
yet direct.



Regards, Not


.

I think it's excellent.

Cheers

David

Me too, although I like Not's critique.

Should it be "you'd have" rather than 'you'd of'. You could, if you wanted to add a touch of the cavalier, have "you'd've". It's not conventional, though.

Best

JJ

Really like this brokenbridge.
I'm ok with the Capitalization, like the use of punctuation throughout.
The linebreaks are all good, but maybe there's another form waiting for it.
It's basically perfect . . . maybe 7 lines from the end I would go - '... It was your voice - soft'
Some really interesting blurring of identity and framed speech (and tense). The brother could easily be also the N, the id's swapping back and forth.
We might expect 'my brother['s] sleep' but 'my brother sleep' becomes another of the poem's payoffs.
And the blurred identity draws for me (in retrospect) a parallel between the phone operator and the poet telephoning in this strange human connection.
The air ambulance is a curious detail. Would cardiac arrest in an elderly patient get a helicopter? - maybe on an island or somewhere remote or I suppose in a dreamscape.
I quite like the 'Of' and the way it is capitalized, spotlighted - just a flash of the voice.

Regards,
Jules