The Sins of My Father

The sins of my father rest
Upon my shoulders, sinking my chest.
Like a yoke with two buckets
Straining sinew in my knees.

The buckets are full to the brim
Five gallons each, contents grim.
The lids are on, I dare not open them.
To do so would force me to face what is within.

I carry this yoke ignorantly by choice
Perhaps to avoid having to voice
My true feelings, hunkered inside
My chest, now failing, falling towards feet.

My back is tired, it creaks and cramps
I should have left the lids over those lamps
If I had, I would not have seen the buckets
I would not have seen the yoke, I would not carry it.

I question why I am the one who lifts,
Why I am the one whose foot shifts.
Is it love? Is it hate? Is it a way to be civil?
Am I just being complacent? Compliant?

I have to believe it is love.
We all have those things which shove
Us to our feet- demand payment.
I choose to help lift, to carry these burdens

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The fog of my eye

The fog of my eye hides truth.
I peer through the haze,
I think I see a corner booth,
It’s full of friends from past days.

I rub my eyes and the image changes.
The lighting of this booth is dim,
Ill-lit to hide the scars on our faces.
As one mutters, “who invited him?”

My ears deceive me in this moment.
Am I wanted, or not? I cannot tell.
My feet are stuck in the cold cement
The sudden shock rises in a drastic shrill.

The exit serves as a sweeping draft
That cools me from the rising heat.
Is it just me that feels the heat blast?
Or are we all just faking, stuck in defeat?

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Broadway, Nashville.

Push past the homeless people.
Step over the waist-high garbage piles.
Ignore that triple digit bar tab.
That smell? Snub your nose.
The music is but a hum in my ear.
Everything is background.

You. You are what I reach for in this place.
I step in line with your off-tempo pace.
I spend lavishly, for money is cyclical.
Your perfume is all I smell, so mystical.
All I need to hear is your voice,
It carries me from here- your choice.

I am a sucker for your love
Though it is not pure as white dove
I hope it to be eternal
I pray it to be immortal
I realize your limitations
And I’m not too stupid to realize imitations.

There is fake, there is real
What I can promise of how I feel
Is that my words, these words,
They are forever, like hymnal chords.
For when our vessels fail and the end is near,
History will remember my prayer.

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Denver

She stalks her prey
In short grass cut last week.
She hunts this way,
Fur laid back and sleek.

She is a concrete cobra
A grass stalking stray.
Performing outdoor yoga,
Hunting in her driveway.

The world owes her nothing,
Nor is she in any debt.
She only enjoys hunting,
And she poses no threat.

She is simply a cat
Who dreams of catching bugs
Who knows no land of fat
Who resembles the greatest of thugs.

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In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
This phrase proceeds repetitively in my mind.
Read from a cheap piece of wood, poorly signed.
In the narrows hallways of ambition, untruthfully lined.
It is a lie, maliciously and hopefully combined
Meant to stir kindness, but reaping a harvest unkind.
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
The lie is not in the virtue which I find.
It is in the poor philosophy of these words pined.
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
As if you can be anything, but what is predefined.
Decided by you status, your color, your life, your ill mind,
You have little say, I would be inclined not to remind
That you are brought up like those mankind
Who teach you to be a worn down rind
Of the self which they left behind.
Destitute and disinclined.
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
A lie, meant to make you complacent and resigned.
I offer a different truth, which I beg you bear in mind.
Be different, unbind, unassigned, and unaligned.

If it wasn’t so windy

If it wasn’t so windy, we could have a fire.
I sip my bourbon with no worry of desire.
An ant crawls on my leg, I flick it off
With the respect and rigor of Eric Bischoff.
My 1920 Bourbon reminds me of prohibition,
As I smell my neighbor’s cigarette, reprobation.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,
Some admit folly, most won’t.
Nevertheless, it exists in all
As pride cometh before the fall.
The winds passover all who sit outside
For it is the home in which they reside
And if you think for a moment
That you are a worthy opponent,
Remember,
You have no control.

But a dog in dirt.

The deafening silence at night
Is quiet enough to project
The voice of God to my ears
I ask, “Would it save? or fright?”

If confronted with true scales
I know which side would lean.
In a moment of desperation
I would steal the scale and set sail.

I am but a dog in dirt.
When He who owns offers
Bath and food, I decline-
I would rather revel in dirt.

Clean fur is a myth- a lie.
Do not believe other dogs
Who claim they have no fleas.
They are putrid muts, like I

Yet.

My Owner does not care
That when He scratches
My ear, He must wash
His hands and scrub them bare.

While the deafening silence
Surrounds my dog house at night,
I do not fear or shake
I remember His alliance.

He escapes to his sanctuaries.

A man reads a story
To get lost in it.
Yet we do not worry
When he actually does

He is unable to tell
The difference between
What is fake, and living Hell.
He escapes with reason.

He escapes to his sanctuaries,
These paper castles protect
But they crumb to mortuaries
With the flick of a single match.

The match is held firmly
Between a pointer and thumb
Of the one called “family.”
The one, meant, to replace.

I have my father’s restlessness

I have my father’s restlessness
A generational habit to be uneasy.
My watching eyes relentless.
Staring, pestering, queasy
As I twiddle my thumbs around.
Accusatory lips bring life
To words once without sound
Cutting like a surgical knife
Putting the Other into ground.
Separating them from myself
By way of insult and overt
Injustice. I put them on the shelf
Hide from me. For I know not,
My power.

Build a disguise

Fifteen hours since my last.
Do I continue with my fast?
Or do I surrender like
A child made outcast.

What does it matter?
My determination will shatter
And the heft of my
Weight will only grow fatter.

As society tells me lies
And my self confidence dies,
I have no other option
But to build a disguise.

Now I am trapped between
Both with skin so sheen
Giving conflicting statements,
To neither I am keen.