Father’s Day

When we were kids you’d play games with us
But not the friendly kind
Our fragile hearts you gambled with
On the battlefield in our mind

Young and hopeful we all were
Quick to wake and forgive
The awful sights and sounds last night
We pretended we were happy to live

The hidden pain and open wound
Began to show its ugly head
When I sixteen, almost a man
Still childlike wet the bed

The bloody scars from broken words
Piled many upon our backs
Why hope when countless times our hopes
Were dragged like de Launay to the ax

No two alike but each sibling bore
A father wound deep inside
A dreadful echo of our past
We seldom ceased to hide

A lover here and there endured
Us only long enough
To gaze and turn and run away
And leave the diamond in the rough

How feels it now, when age has caught
Your mind and body frail?
Once sharp and biting now time has dulled
No longer fresh the colors pale

A magnificent mind of twisted fall
Was sharp and quick to bite
Your sons and daughters in their youth
Before they gained their might

Your falsehoods and your stories slowed
Your sharpest words are mumbled
You flounder now, as your children watch
Your regime slowly crumble

Hateful thoughts and tension have torn
Vast cavities in your soul
The sparks and dancing of the mind
Plucked out and left a hole

A man can fake a nod, a smile
For a decade maybe two
But build your house on sands of lies
And soon it will swallow you

And chances are when mind is slow
And hurt friends drink your ill
Your children too will absent be
As the hole you left they fill

Some place within it bottles dry
And some free love and sex
And some will sit and squeeze the trigger
And hope for peace in the Next.

Thus now spent, where will you go
For every bridge you burned
When wife and children you shot to pieces
With each new leaf they turned

You lived alone and thus companioned
Alone you die estranged
From your wife and suffering children
Your life you made, unchanged.

You’ll die alone as your life merits
Surrounded by your friends
Addictions and manipulations
And all your moral greys and blends

Oh how I wish I could call you
To wish you happy Father’s Day
And for once not lie through my lips
With every word I say

Your fight is done, and now you’re weak
And nature has caught up
You should have spent your life for others
Pouring out your cup

But you seldom did, and how you thirst
Now that your blood runs thin.
A lifetime lost of family and friends,
The race you ran you’ll win

Why wait until the final hour to try
And say what was never said?
Can a generation of unresolved conflict
Be forgiven from a hospital bed?

Life now fades, your song is done
With body weak and riddled bone
You children even if present, will absent be
And you’ll still die alone