FATHER'S RETURN

Part I — Transparent Flag.

Again You burst into my life,
Like a fast moving down train powering along the line.
Forged pistons firing like the heels of blue thunder,
Spotlights shine burning down the sleepers of my mind.

Your judgement lasts a day but like a bandit in the night
You squander no time in barking orders, making demands,
Puncturing my comfortable world with every part of you
That watches, listens and commands.

You seek me out from secret corners,
Raid my contentment and colour it black,
Plunder my conscience with encircling engagements,
Invade deep into my emotion and annex it back.

Your lingering shadow burns through the soft clouds of my dreaming,
Striking my mind dead before it is woken,
You attack with the babble of witch doctors’ mountain,
Leaving a smoke trail that is tankrolled, barraged and broken.

Your conjecture is twisted but stuck in one line,
If the truth doesn’t fit it meets your denial.
I see the facts that you clearly refuse;
Your clash with the world is your very survival.

Your disjointed logic has got me reeling,
It bogs me down in cold fits of confusion.
Your distinct lack of empathy to anything foreign,
Your answer to everything a forgone conclusion.

How can I possibly get anywhere with you and your cronies to please,
For I am part of these times you despise, and see you ignore
My every belief and realise that anything I ever do
Will never be enough to satisfy you.

You talk of the past and a truth that’s been stolen,
You tell me of hardship you don’t want me to know.
Of the slaving and torment without reward,
Now there’s nothing to build on and nowhere to go.

Your blood runs rich with a torrid history
Of family virtue and struggle through war,
But I see the truth behind your transparent flag
That has led you here to my door.

Vengeance, conquest and wealth is the end you really want,
And anything it takes to get you’ll do, or call upon others to serve.
But one day you may have to look at Yourself,
And ask what you really deserve.

 

FATHER'S RETURN

Part II — Again.

Again
you are gone,
Again.
Your face in my mind,
Fresh.
Your shirts on the line,
Wet.
Your wrinkles and furrows,
Your leathery skin,
I try to recall,
Your laugh which I love
Is fading away
Like light through a tunnel
Reflected off stone,
Again.
Like a spore of the dandelion
Lost to the wind,
Like the haunting of spirits
from the sanskrits of time,
Again.
Like the wonderful howl of a wailing bird,
its flapping black form in distant retreat,
Until it becomes, just
part of the sky,
Again.

 

FATHER'S RETURN

Part III — Searching.

Somehow

Your shadow
Remains at large.
The sky all around you,
The world pulls you out,
Dividing,
Devising,
To where it may lead you,
The darkness of night,
But the light in your eyes
hasn’t faded.

 

Freedom.

That is what you preach.
It is the teaching of your meddled heart,
The cornerstone of your beliefs.
You have tried and tried but
your fuel of alcohol
couldn’t carry you that far
And always seemed
to burn you out to a fizzle
not where
you wanted to be.

 

Destined

To become a star.
Even though you haven’t known it
You have always been
in my eyes.
Not one that sparkles brightly in the realm of all,
Not one that gains its resplendent glow through selfish pride,
But one that hovers silently among others,
to make up the enduring great spectacle of the universe
as perfectly true and wonderful
as it is.

 

Tribute.

You have paid to your God
For exorcising demons;
I have paid it to your soul.
The crumpled will of a seafaring captain
Who has grappled with ropes,
The ropes that pull him like a puppet,
Dragging him endlessly
Governed by cold-charging trade winds,
That leave a man nothing more
than a runner of the sea.

 

Broken.

You have left me with broken dreams,
The scattered seeds of our love for each other
Have been picked up and blown away.
You never gave me the choice
But you always gave me
The sorry goodbye;
The jibbering words,
The empty ploy,
that left me wondering why.

 

Victim.

You never claimed to be one yourself,
Just a merchant with little luck,
Pencilling his course in history,
His lifetime breaking down
into an unknown constant.
And why do you not call yourself
A bosom on the sand,
A blossom in the rainforest,
An able steady hand.

 

Alone.

Do you know that’s where I am?
And that is where you have left me?
The great legacy
of our meeting.
The piracy of our fleeting,
And a feeling that was not mutual
— Never was it mutual —
I wonder do you even know
The meaning of the word?

 

Rescue.

Is that what you seek?
A change from weary fleeing,
A chance to renew your sins,
Or do you still believe you are the rescuer,
Come to take the hand of your youngest son,
Shake sense into my senses...

 

Now come months of winter
Of which you too are part,
Combing through lives
like scavengers,
Breaking chains apart.

 

Wanted.

That is where you are now.
Wanted in my heart,
Wanted in my soul,
In my everyday life,
In my aspirations and vows.
You have left a gap so critical,
A chasm of such size,
A tide of expectation
I will never be able
to completely fill.
A burden on me.
A deep black hole.

 

Washed.

I have washed you from my eyes,
For they have hurt too long.
And now I set you free from grasp,
Your footprints swept clean away
from the tide of our lives together.
But in truth you will be there forever,
A ship unlit that stays off the shore,
That rides the darkened fog of night
And is always simply

Searching.