For my father
Where does it hurt, dad?
I see the mind turning,
the drugs, the Reds, the volume on high:
anything to quiet inner voice.
What does it tell you, dad?
Don’t believe it;
I don’t care about your money,
or your conquests.
I love you for who you are:
my father.
The unraveling starts slowly, but surely. From my earliest memories, I’ve been trying to find meaning amid the chaos. I still get the “pictures,” as a recovery friend likes to say. As I continue my research, I discover that psychologists today call those “intrusive memories.”
At times I wonder if the whole world is wrapped up in this web of dysfunction. If we’ve been marching toward this boiling point for some time now, and if we’re about to face a reckoning.
Continue reading The soul-snatcher glared at me from the dusty street corner with fiery orange eyes, his hands cupped over his mouth because of the early morning cold.
I had been out late that night, and I was returning home a little tipsy.
“Hello there,” he said. “Looking for your fix?”
We wallow in the cathedral, sell wisdom by the ounce.
Sleeping on a bed of soda cans and condoms,
next shot could be the last;
eyes closed, mouth foams, we melt into the hardwood floor.
Father, forgive me.
We came from the county;
grew up on farms, riding horses.
Sitting in the derelict pew; this used to be a spiritual haven.
Maybe it still is?
Father, forgive me.
We’re in the here and now, and now, we want a shot,
filling us like cheap unleaded,
let us lie here in our twisted peace.
Father, forgive us.
