In memoriam Dennis O’Toole (1946--51) [Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dennis O'Toole, Bridie (Flynn) Winch, Terence Winch. Rockaway Beach, NY, August 1948.

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When I was five I was involved in an accident that has affected me deeply for the last 70 years. My best friend was a boy named Dennis O'Toole, who lived in the building next to mine on Daly Avenue in the Bronx. One summer day in 1951 the two of us filled up our water guns in my family's apartment & headed out to play. I remember that my mother was ironing & cautioned us to be careful as we ran out of the house.

But we weren't careful. I was about a foot in front of Dennis as we tore across the street, shooting our guns in the air & laughing. Then, suddenly, I sensed something had changed.

When I turned around, I saw that Dennis had been knocked back to the other side of the street, where he was propped up against the tire of a parked car. It was a ghastly scene. There was vomit coming from his mouth and his forehead appeared to be missing. To my left was a black truck. Clearly, I had very narrowly escaped my friend's fate. My memory of all this has always played in my mind without any sound, a silent movie. I think I was in shock. 

Since that terrible black truck ran into my interior life, not a day has gone by when I haven't re-lived this experience. Part of me has always felt that one of my assignments was to live life for both of us. 

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Survivor

 

I imagine you are just now settling down

for the night, your bed as white as mayonnaise,

which some people apparently prefer to ketchup

or even mustard. I don’t know what you would

have liked, but I pretend that you are exactly like me,

that you have lived on inside my body, my psyche

and have done so since that day you died.

 

I see you as you start to drift off, up there

amid the clouds shaped like clusters of forbidden

fruit, dressed in your flour-white communion suit

and short pants, never to be seen again, never

to attend the Friday night dance at St. Helena’s,

never to get drunk with me on blackberry brandy

in the boys’ bathroom, your absence looming

over the history of the world as I’ve known it.

 

It couldn’t be prevented. The sudden rip

that took you on your trip to the beyond,

while I stayed right here, forever wondering

what hit you on the street that summer day

but failed to take me away as well. I am bereft

of you. I am all now that is left of you.

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                         Terence Winch, James (Jesse) Winch, Dennis O'Toole. Rockaway, NYC. August 1948.

 

Comments

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Devastating. Deeply moving. Really these words are not sufficient, do not assuage the pain. But as you note you are the Survivor. And we are lucky to have your poetry.

[Peter Kearney]

O Terence, what a moving poem! Each stanza ends with a heartache your reader feels too.

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

He lives. Two sweet boys in one. Thank you, Terence.

[Clarinda]

This is beautiful and devastating. Your friend chose the perfect friend to haunt.

[lally]

noble yet still humble to share that tragedy and its ongoing aftermath so brilliantly

[jesse winch]

Wrenchingly beautiful and sad. Kudos to you, my brother, for this incredibly evocative moment bringing back fond and sad memories.

[M. O’K.]

That’s a beautiful and haunting piece, Terence.

[Denise Duhamel]

Brilliant elegy. And how we carry one another in memory and in our bodies.

[Chris Mason]

Beautiful heartbreaking poem. The ketchup and mayonnaise and mustard are great five year old kid colors. Thank you for posting this poem!

[Beth J]

Beautiful is the word. A perfectly artful description of the way the lasting memories of people we have loved are carried in our bodies.

[Richard Giannone]

Terence, your poem reminds me that through vulnerability and dependency we connect to one another. Faith is human relations, that and nothing more.

[Robert Pinsky]

The concluding "bereft of you" and "left of you" is terrific. (In all senses.)

[maureen Owen]

Stunning lyric holding such a tragic shock. Breathtaking.

[Eileen]

I remember Dennis. He was a beautiful child and came along on many a trip to the zoo or the park with us. It’s still a sad memory but he lives in a special place in your heart ❤️

[Susan Campbell]

Stunningly beautiful.

[David Lehman]

A stunning memory -- and poem. The ending stanza is beautiful.

[Abbie Mulvihill]

A horrific moment in time, but a beautifully crafted tribute. Wonderful piece of art, Terry.

[Lawrence Welsh]

May God have mercy on his immortal soul, and let perpetual light shine upon him. This is a first-rate send up. He knows of your good deed here. The dead always know. Bravo.

[Thomas Davis]

You are unbelievable, Terence. The memory has to be more powerful than the poem, but the poem as memory is powerful, powerful indeed. You are a poet.

[Don Berger]

Stunning. A good good friend of yours, I'd never heard this story before and now hear it in its bravest, most pointed, sacred form. My times are changed, beautifully, by the poem's grace. Your power to sing has never been stronger, Terence. And to think you've had it inside all this time. The world now has this poem to move all of us forward with. I walk and think differently now, for the better, for life.

[Mark Pawlak]

T,

Deeply moving poem. Grief can tie the tongue, but you tackle it so gracefully and naturally. no surprise, those are characteristic of all your poems. Thank you.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 10,” which begins with the four-word rebuke “Death, be not proud,” and Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” which ends with the unreachable ache of the last line “Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,” swam back to me after reading Terence Winch’s poem “Survivor.” On a self-evident level, the title refers to both the poet, who barely escaped death, and his boyhood friend, who met his death far too young yet lives on through the poem and the memory of its author. How do we give words to ineffable, sudden, full-stop tragedy and its incessant nipping at our psyche for having the effrontery to live on? Terence has done something extraordinary here: he has given words to word-defying tragedy in a way none of us can shake off. If ever words could matter, his do here. This searing, soul-searching poem is an enduring testament to a cruelly curtailed friendship brought vibrantly alive through the words of one of our finest poets today. Terence Winch has rescued his friend for all of us. To quote Donne again: “For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow / Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”

[Christian Dupont]

When I was five, shortly before my parents were preparing to move us (I was an only child) to another state, I learned that my best friend (also named David) had struck his younger brother in the head with a hammer. On purpose, I gathered, nearly killing him. I never saw him again, nor heard anything more about it. A different kind of a violence and separation. I hadn't thought about this childhood incident for some time before reading Terence's poem. Like Robert, the "bereft" and "left" rhyme at the end really got me.

[Jennifer O’Riordan]

So beautiful, moving and perfect, Terence. Go raibh maith agat.

[Peter C Kissel]

What a wonderful tribute to a dear friend. You express so well how Dennis lives on in you. He is proud of your talent and smiling with you.