"I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing fingertips
It burned like a fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the Kingdom Come
When all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
And you loosened the chains
Carried the crossOf all my shame
all my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
music and lyrics by U2 "i still haven't found what i'm looking for"
“FROM FANTASY TO FAITH”
There is the old joke about getting everything you want. “Be careful...” it begins, warning us about the prayer that asks for the things we think we need only to find, when we have them...I have been thinking about getting everything I want. It seems now possible that I can have it all. It is not just a childhood dream anymore, this pursuit of the worthy life. It is now possible reality. So, what if? What if I wrote that book that said all I had to say and married that woman in the embrace of total love and lived in that light house on a hill with the children, long sought and prayed for, playing easily in the shifting, high grass? What will happen when my inner dreams finally match outer reality?
My answer has always been too simple: joy, fulfilment, completeness. I might be 70 years old when I notice that my life is good, might be on a deathbed with a fading heart, only then sensing that the shadows of heaven have been around me all along. Still, the picture will be complete.
Now, however, I see holes appearing in my dreams of completeness. I see blotches on the white garment of my future-mind. In the middle of my reverie about the perfect day lies the imperfect mind that creates such mass-manufactured bliss. I underestimate the very real hunger of my own soul.
I remember what it felt like at the summit of the romantic love I shared recently. The way I would watch her do the most mundane task, eating perhaps, and attach holiness to that sacred moment. The way she could gently bend my day away from darkness and into her glowing light by telling me to be calm, to not let the flood overwhelm me, to be more like myself. I remember holding her hand and feeling connected in every way, walking in a crowd but seeing only her, laughing at our private jokes, calling her for no reason but love, counting the seconds in between till she replied some text I had sent her with the wit of her brain and the colour of her beautiful heart. It felt perfect, unstoppable, like the alchemy, the all-cure, the all-thing, the love that all other inklings with other women led up to. Complete. Not perfect, but complete. And yet I was still hungry. I would needle her over irrelevant nonsense, feign jealousy at innocuous acts , switch off when she wanted to talk deep and all the time test her, probe, push, pull, look for where the weakness was, try to prove that there was something wrong here, that love could not be true and so naturally so. At first I put it all down to not trusting love or that anyone could love me and not leave. So why not speed up the process of departure? Now I know better. We were total in our fragile state and had the potential to be more but it was not enough for me. I wanted something more. Our hearts are carved in the shape of heaven. The things we chase can lead us further or closer to that. Yet they cannot be that place. I could stare into those beautiful eyes forever and it would not be enough. If we are honest about our true state, this is all of us. When you get what you want you get busy with trying to keep it. If you do not, if you allow one minute of introspection, one second of inner study of the entire picture of your desire, you will see how hungry you still are. The big secret about life on planet earth is: nothing satisfies.
Within all of us is this hunger for heaven that only heaven can satisfy. There is no complete life without the complete picture of God, no real freedom without the great boundary of faith, no real end without a beginning in God. The final frontier is faith; the last safe place is the in the arms of a certain belief and the fulfilment of that stand is the full fulfilment of the single soul.
I am writing this on the outer bench of a church. There is that microphone in the air sound, the static, the trumpet, the horn, the voice of one certain in his hopes, the safety we seek in concepts like God and free will and church community. A boy cries for his mother. He hugs her legs and she bears him up, toward the safety of her embrace. There is this illusion of simple need met by simpler action. It speaks also of the illusion of safety hidden in the great cathedrals of our minds. No room to be troubled or sad or wrong or wronged. Always act “as if”. As if you are not scared. As if he/she did not hurt you. As if you are not in pain. Walk on in pretence. And then we call this faith. To cover up every question we have about the state of our souls and the state of our world because we hope that in God’s divine safety net we will not be touched by storm or fire, by wind or by flood. The mark of the blood (and you must repeat “blood of...”) will separate us from the Egyptians (sorry, D.) and we will be safe. The bounty of heaven will grant all our desires and we will be rich. The giver of destinies will make us important and we will do well. The redeemer will find us a spouse, a house, a car and a job and all the doubters, the charlatans will bow to our affirmation as the sons of God risen from out of scripture to live life full. Is this not faith? No. This is fantasy. I agree that in the early days of the God-experience it all seems like this. Promises made from the heart of your new love seem to say you have come to rest and all your former frustrations with everything but yourself have come to a crucial end at the cross of Calvary. This is fantasy. The reality is blood and gore and death in discomfort. The reward is resurrection and life forever. This is our faith.
There is no moment for me like the moments in which I am writing. It is complete all by itself. Time stops, hunger disappears, I am at the wheel of my own special car. I have entered that zone where Christ told his over-eager disciples “my meat and drink is to do the will of my father.” And where Tupac Shakur noted: “I feel the hand of God on my brain when I write rhymes.” I feel most like myself in between a paper, a pen and the forming of words steadily in my head and heart. And even this is not enough. There are dry days when the wells of inspiration are hard and deep. I cannot spend my whole life in the solitude of writing. It may feel complete but it will not complete me. There is still the more I want beyond this. For fantasy is to take glimpses as the full picture, a rest on a mountaintop as the end of all valleys ,to think that faith is about giving you all you want rather than the assurance that in God’s brilliant lights you will find all you need.
A verse in Hebrews 11 makes this crucial statement about faith: “and all these died without receiving the things that God had promised them.” When I read that it bothered me so much I put it away for a few...years. Yet we have to look at truth when we see it and in looking at the first promise we are told about between a rising God and a fallen man on the basis of faith we find the secret of every subsequent promise. “Come Abram, leave all you know and come to a place that I will show you.” Our entire faith is here. Come from the comfort of family, from the scourge of indifference, from the every religious inclination, every church or mosque, every prayer house or group of doubt, come from where you are right now, from that imperfection called your former life, come to be who you truly are, come and find faith out of that fantasy called the ordinary life.
The promise was never physical safety or ‘true love’ or a soul that wants nothing. The promise is hunger, cold, comfort, truth, power, weakness, loss and all these wonderful ingredients leading to one glorious end-Him. The reward for the worthy life is God. God does not lead us down this road of tragedy and grace so we can get a gift. The gift is Him. Nothing else will do at the end of the road of life. The world is not enough for any of us.
Think of the last time you experienced the end of any pleasure, satiation. A good meal making you full, an orgasm, an evening with a person you adore, a job well done, anything at all. Just be sure to think honestly. It was not enough, was it? Somewhere in your soul you have to admit that it only made you more aware of your hunger. It did not cure you. You knew you would be hungry again. Hungry for more food or achievement or sex or intimacy. More. All these things we chase tell us there is more. They are not the more.
God is the more. Faith is the belief that He is the final place we are going and where all of this drama we see and feel will make sense. It is so simple it is by instinct we draw close to it. While we have to invent fantasy, all we have to do to embrace faith is to listen to the hunger of our soul. And listen to what it says as we fail and fail again to fill it with all the air in the world. For if there is no God or He has been replaced by science or logic, if all of this is some carefully constructed myth sustained over time by a Mafioso church and only that, then why are we still hungry? Why do we still want more than we can get in this world?
It is time for us to end the fantasy. To chose to live up to the truth. To join the league of those who know they will not be satisfied, until...those that hunger and thirst...for they shall be filled...to move from fantasy to faith.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
the best people i know.
I have been writing this entry in my head and in my heart for months. I hope I finally get it right.
I want to celebrate the gift of golden friendships; the great rising that is the final realisation that you are not totally alone in the world, that there are others like you and that you will face the world, back to back, together. I want to name names, state events; I want to expose some of the best people I know to the brilliant light of day. I will not arrange it in any particular order and it is by no means an exhaustive list. So, Holy Spirit or profane muse, lead me on:
I celebrate myani. He once said that Nas and I were the reason he was sent to law school. I have to say that he is the reason why those nine months do not feel like a waste. There are few people with his depth that will reach the heights. The world is less futile with him in it.
I celebrate the hotness. When I showed up at her door, teary eyed and heart ached over ada she put aside the protective wall between man and woman and held me in spirit-arms. There is hope between man and woman.
I celebrate my band of brothers, Jacob’s pillow, black pearl, the ship adrift to nowhere land. When the true story is written it will be all of you written into the books as my saviours, my sun, the lighthouse of my soul. To name you or to state your event is not enough and is not allowed. Our cult has its oath of secrecy (wink, wink) and I will abide by it. It will suffice to say that in number and in deed you are perfect. The number 7.
I celebrate ada. Break-ups are nasty, unfortunate affairs and no one comes out of them looking good. But here is a genuine beautiful letdown, something that hurts and heals and then you wake up on an island of lessons learned. The pretenders to the throne of perfection claim that a mistake is a mistake and all is bad. Those of us that live in the real world defined by grace know better. We know all roads lead us back to Golgotha where our king won it all. We fight, we claim love, we chase others but our circle will close soon and whatever we become it will be full of love. The kind truly made in heaven, above romance, above pictures, above embraces and skin and the feeling that would have taken us nowhere at all. When we are there, in that place where “I love you “means only one thing then we can truly say what we need to say and nothing else.
I celebrate Nas. For here is a pat on the back, a pint of frosty beer, a good story told well, a night with the inklings. Here is faith above fantasy and truth above the many faces we put on to feel a little better than the inner disasters we think we are. Here is the word of God, the chasing of alcohol and beautiful women, the conversation never-ending, the laughter real. Here is the man apart, the koko, the star, the ear, the heart, the head. Here is the “what the fuck?” and the island of troy and the place where Arthur is buried and Excalibur sleeps beside him. Here is the book and the author, the poem and the play, the playwright and the verse, the director and the stage, the stage light and the actor. Here is the truth, finally. A bleeding, breaking heart that nothing ever satisfies and nothing ever will. Until, God. Weak, needy, obnoxious, loud, proud, perfect son of God. Flamingo 1. The common rumour is that the man that stands next to you at that shadow of final reunion they call a wedding should be the best man you know. I know my best man.
I celebrate these and the many more in pages to come.
I am better because we all share the same century.
Nagode.
I want to celebrate the gift of golden friendships; the great rising that is the final realisation that you are not totally alone in the world, that there are others like you and that you will face the world, back to back, together. I want to name names, state events; I want to expose some of the best people I know to the brilliant light of day. I will not arrange it in any particular order and it is by no means an exhaustive list. So, Holy Spirit or profane muse, lead me on:
I celebrate myani. He once said that Nas and I were the reason he was sent to law school. I have to say that he is the reason why those nine months do not feel like a waste. There are few people with his depth that will reach the heights. The world is less futile with him in it.
I celebrate the hotness. When I showed up at her door, teary eyed and heart ached over ada she put aside the protective wall between man and woman and held me in spirit-arms. There is hope between man and woman.
I celebrate my band of brothers, Jacob’s pillow, black pearl, the ship adrift to nowhere land. When the true story is written it will be all of you written into the books as my saviours, my sun, the lighthouse of my soul. To name you or to state your event is not enough and is not allowed. Our cult has its oath of secrecy (wink, wink) and I will abide by it. It will suffice to say that in number and in deed you are perfect. The number 7.
I celebrate ada. Break-ups are nasty, unfortunate affairs and no one comes out of them looking good. But here is a genuine beautiful letdown, something that hurts and heals and then you wake up on an island of lessons learned. The pretenders to the throne of perfection claim that a mistake is a mistake and all is bad. Those of us that live in the real world defined by grace know better. We know all roads lead us back to Golgotha where our king won it all. We fight, we claim love, we chase others but our circle will close soon and whatever we become it will be full of love. The kind truly made in heaven, above romance, above pictures, above embraces and skin and the feeling that would have taken us nowhere at all. When we are there, in that place where “I love you “means only one thing then we can truly say what we need to say and nothing else.
I celebrate Nas. For here is a pat on the back, a pint of frosty beer, a good story told well, a night with the inklings. Here is faith above fantasy and truth above the many faces we put on to feel a little better than the inner disasters we think we are. Here is the word of God, the chasing of alcohol and beautiful women, the conversation never-ending, the laughter real. Here is the man apart, the koko, the star, the ear, the heart, the head. Here is the “what the fuck?” and the island of troy and the place where Arthur is buried and Excalibur sleeps beside him. Here is the book and the author, the poem and the play, the playwright and the verse, the director and the stage, the stage light and the actor. Here is the truth, finally. A bleeding, breaking heart that nothing ever satisfies and nothing ever will. Until, God. Weak, needy, obnoxious, loud, proud, perfect son of God. Flamingo 1. The common rumour is that the man that stands next to you at that shadow of final reunion they call a wedding should be the best man you know. I know my best man.
I celebrate these and the many more in pages to come.
I am better because we all share the same century.
Nagode.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my son: hirra and about hirra."
“To my son: Hirra and about Hirra.”
The page is always blank
There is plenty of nothing to say
I am afraid to give advice
On the many things I fail at
So, here goes the old song
That thing about honesty
Ancient wisdom passed on
In talk
From son to son
In action
From one to one
So that in these fragile lights
A piece of the battleground might be won
Outside the gift we have, the love we share and the destiny that pursues us as we pursue it
We are just “man”
Living hearts in failing sand
Taught violence badly by history
Hungry, desperate, unreasoning
Trying to hold all this water in
But it always, always finds its way out
Evil has a scream and a shout
While all goodness has is useless clout
All this is abstract nonsense
Can I be specific with the truth?
Outside a certain him
You are just a man
Your quiet destiny is the sand
Your loud one is to play the clown
If you ever decide to play this game of futility
Those that reach for the real skies?
All they find is gruesome humility
Over and over again
I am abstract, again
Hirra, I am trying not to make you my priest
You are not my redemption from past sins
You will not make right my wrong
You have your own battles to fight
You are not my legacy, you are yours
Be the man you are
Live under your own star
And one last thing,
Love
I took a ride with your uncle
Through the new cities of light
I sat in doubt and he sat in fullness
Both under the influence of love
In his eyes I found my final, first message to you
Love, love, love
Use your heart and GOD’S brain
But love
There will be torture, there will be pain
Love
You will always change, never be the same
Love
There is nothing more important in living
Than the simple act of constantly giving
In love, in love
Love your woman; love her womb and its fruit
Love your family, your country; love the tune you play on your flute
But,
Learn to love from love Him-self
He sits above religion, above dogma
He is superior logic, powerful premise and final conclusion
The light at the end of the world’s tunnel-view confusion
Love, Hirra, it is your name.
It is your destiny, your real fame
And when you have done this, all else fades
This is reality
Sudden, broad clarity
The world and its entire destiny
And you are part of that march through eternity
That is all I have to say for today
The sun is setting, the evening looms
I have to go and look through other rooms
Come with me
Let us put the lights on in this old light house
Soon we will eat and sit through old tales
Perhaps, today we will share our first drink
Cuban libres? Smirnoff? Red wine?
We will know when we get there .
The page is always blank
There is plenty of nothing to say
I am afraid to give advice
On the many things I fail at
So, here goes the old song
That thing about honesty
Ancient wisdom passed on
In talk
From son to son
In action
From one to one
So that in these fragile lights
A piece of the battleground might be won
Outside the gift we have, the love we share and the destiny that pursues us as we pursue it
We are just “man”
Living hearts in failing sand
Taught violence badly by history
Hungry, desperate, unreasoning
Trying to hold all this water in
But it always, always finds its way out
Evil has a scream and a shout
While all goodness has is useless clout
All this is abstract nonsense
Can I be specific with the truth?
Outside a certain him
You are just a man
Your quiet destiny is the sand
Your loud one is to play the clown
If you ever decide to play this game of futility
Those that reach for the real skies?
All they find is gruesome humility
Over and over again
I am abstract, again
Hirra, I am trying not to make you my priest
You are not my redemption from past sins
You will not make right my wrong
You have your own battles to fight
You are not my legacy, you are yours
Be the man you are
Live under your own star
And one last thing,
Love
I took a ride with your uncle
Through the new cities of light
I sat in doubt and he sat in fullness
Both under the influence of love
In his eyes I found my final, first message to you
Love, love, love
Use your heart and GOD’S brain
But love
There will be torture, there will be pain
Love
You will always change, never be the same
Love
There is nothing more important in living
Than the simple act of constantly giving
In love, in love
Love your woman; love her womb and its fruit
Love your family, your country; love the tune you play on your flute
But,
Learn to love from love Him-self
He sits above religion, above dogma
He is superior logic, powerful premise and final conclusion
The light at the end of the world’s tunnel-view confusion
Love, Hirra, it is your name.
It is your destiny, your real fame
And when you have done this, all else fades
This is reality
Sudden, broad clarity
The world and its entire destiny
And you are part of that march through eternity
That is all I have to say for today
The sun is setting, the evening looms
I have to go and look through other rooms
Come with me
Let us put the lights on in this old light house
Soon we will eat and sit through old tales
Perhaps, today we will share our first drink
Cuban libres? Smirnoff? Red wine?
We will know when we get there .
Monday, February 2, 2009
poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my daughter: esther."
“To my daughter: Esther.”
Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”
I hold her in uncertain arms
I look at her as vulnerable as she will ever be
And I dare any man to hurt her
To make her eyes like the sea
To make a murderer of me
She is one day old
She struggles to crawl through red carpets
The dust makes her sneeze
I am typing at some ancient book
I hear her cry and shout for her mother
“I am making the bacon” I say
And Esther gives me an icy look
That tells me work is no excuse
She is nine months old
I try to put on her evening shirt
She laughs at my incompetence
I look at her eyes like an ocean
I am proud of her little victories
Her non-nose picking, non-bed wetting, her grin as wide as a beam of sunlight
She adjusts her shirt and smiles
“Incompetent men” she says, just like her mother
She is three years old
She is going shopping with her mother
I am not allowed to come
Why?
I ask, I beg, I plead
My women are going off to sea
Without, without me
So I wait till the older one is next to me in bed
And I demand an answer
“A bra.” is what I hear
Oh God!
And now, there will be boys
Lustful little devils
Like me
Damn!
Esther is twelve years old
“I love him” she says, defiant and stubborn
“We are Nigerians. That is no way to talk to me. Tell me you want to marry and he is a man of character who will not irritate me.”
“Pop, the west has won. We are all Americans now.”
I should have thought her some Hausa
Or some......... (Her mother’s language)
“Okay I will meet him”
I had high hopes for her
A nunnery, eternal virginity
I am now an accomplice in her treason
Against my dreams of innocence
Or the false idea of what innocence is
I should know better
She knows better
She is twenty-one years old
I read her poetry with the side of my heart
My eyes are glued to words from her soul
Some of it is harsh on me
I see my failures through her eyes
But there is more
In her heart is the river of eternal silver
And I am only an instrument, a prop, a means to the end
Of the making of her and all her beauty
Too rich for words is she
My daughter of the salt, light and the open sea
Her mother’s eyes, her father’s weird walk, and the ear to talk to God
She is the saviour of the nation of my heart
Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”
And she is of the eternal age.
Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”
I hold her in uncertain arms
I look at her as vulnerable as she will ever be
And I dare any man to hurt her
To make her eyes like the sea
To make a murderer of me
She is one day old
She struggles to crawl through red carpets
The dust makes her sneeze
I am typing at some ancient book
I hear her cry and shout for her mother
“I am making the bacon” I say
And Esther gives me an icy look
That tells me work is no excuse
She is nine months old
I try to put on her evening shirt
She laughs at my incompetence
I look at her eyes like an ocean
I am proud of her little victories
Her non-nose picking, non-bed wetting, her grin as wide as a beam of sunlight
She adjusts her shirt and smiles
“Incompetent men” she says, just like her mother
She is three years old
She is going shopping with her mother
I am not allowed to come
Why?
I ask, I beg, I plead
My women are going off to sea
Without, without me
So I wait till the older one is next to me in bed
And I demand an answer
“A bra.” is what I hear
Oh God!
And now, there will be boys
Lustful little devils
Like me
Damn!
Esther is twelve years old
“I love him” she says, defiant and stubborn
“We are Nigerians. That is no way to talk to me. Tell me you want to marry and he is a man of character who will not irritate me.”
“Pop, the west has won. We are all Americans now.”
I should have thought her some Hausa
Or some......... (Her mother’s language)
“Okay I will meet him”
I had high hopes for her
A nunnery, eternal virginity
I am now an accomplice in her treason
Against my dreams of innocence
Or the false idea of what innocence is
I should know better
She knows better
She is twenty-one years old
I read her poetry with the side of my heart
My eyes are glued to words from her soul
Some of it is harsh on me
I see my failures through her eyes
But there is more
In her heart is the river of eternal silver
And I am only an instrument, a prop, a means to the end
Of the making of her and all her beauty
Too rich for words is she
My daughter of the salt, light and the open sea
Her mother’s eyes, her father’s weird walk, and the ear to talk to God
She is the saviour of the nation of my heart
Light encircles the smallest piece of the universe
Something is torn
A certain tear in the fabric of eternal space
Someone plays an old mandolin in the background
Some old john Mayer song called “say”
And the stars tell the tale
No space on earth for a forlorn look
The stars say: “behold, Esther is born”
And she is of the eternal age.
poethree:the fatherhood poems:"to my father: senoir."
note: none of us are fathers but we are at an age where we may soon be. the subject is rife for poetry and so we present the fatherhood poems...
“To my father: senior.”
I had a dream about you last night
In it you gave me the keys to the kingdom
Some golden part of present-future history
In real life the things between us bleed and bleed
On separate roads
Of frost and cold
Is this fatherhood: having nothing from you on which to hold?
But I start with too much venom
I must remove myself from the picture
I am a son of too much expectation and not much sense
I should rejoice for you are alive and in good health
I hear you are in love in the present tense
So I sit with what remains of my innocence
The broken dreams of fantasy
I have my father, real and free
And I am his son
(Oh, goodness, me...)
So I had this dream about you
You gave me the word to withstand the wind
To calm storms and stand on water
To live a live that will not break or be altered
By the visions of broken men
By the tyranny of ignorance and a refusal to bend
Or to repent
Why did you come to me in dreams?
I am afraid of what you might mean
Is it that obvious that I am failing at life?
Too lustful, too angry, too full of my-self?
Too needy? Too hateful? Too prudent and unkempt?
Too safe? Too lazy? Too new to be old?
Not enough wisdom to give or to hold
What did you mean when you said: “live right, live right now.”?
I know, I know
I see what you mean
Like the day you came to my room
And told me to not lie
Not with word but in act and in deed
You were everything about fatherhood in that one moment
And, liar like me, it took me years to know
That dishonesty was not my nature
But my habit
And this is your success that I Can lie no more
Truth eats inside me, forcing its way out
I was a boy and now I am something else
And now you come with new dreams in the night
With a new manifesto for living in the light
So, I follow, I follow, I make my way there
I have a mountain of troubles but you have been fair
And told me my problems are not where to hide
And they do not absolve me of the responsibility to be right
So you have your legacy
In the things that you said to me
And I would make you proud to see
That your words have made in me
A thorough desire to live
On streets of brass that breaks
And copper that shakes
On humble street
Down lesson road
Where I can learn to be
The name you gave to me.
Thank you father, senior, master of my immediate race
I bow to you as I walk toward fatherhood
In perfection, in imperfection
In voice and in flute
I have a good father and I am waiting to be good, better, my sons -the best
At fatherhood.
“To my father: senior.”
I had a dream about you last night
In it you gave me the keys to the kingdom
Some golden part of present-future history
In real life the things between us bleed and bleed
On separate roads
Of frost and cold
Is this fatherhood: having nothing from you on which to hold?
But I start with too much venom
I must remove myself from the picture
I am a son of too much expectation and not much sense
I should rejoice for you are alive and in good health
I hear you are in love in the present tense
So I sit with what remains of my innocence
The broken dreams of fantasy
I have my father, real and free
And I am his son
(Oh, goodness, me...)
So I had this dream about you
You gave me the word to withstand the wind
To calm storms and stand on water
To live a live that will not break or be altered
By the visions of broken men
By the tyranny of ignorance and a refusal to bend
Or to repent
Why did you come to me in dreams?
I am afraid of what you might mean
Is it that obvious that I am failing at life?
Too lustful, too angry, too full of my-self?
Too needy? Too hateful? Too prudent and unkempt?
Too safe? Too lazy? Too new to be old?
Not enough wisdom to give or to hold
What did you mean when you said: “live right, live right now.”?
I know, I know
I see what you mean
Like the day you came to my room
And told me to not lie
Not with word but in act and in deed
You were everything about fatherhood in that one moment
And, liar like me, it took me years to know
That dishonesty was not my nature
But my habit
And this is your success that I Can lie no more
Truth eats inside me, forcing its way out
I was a boy and now I am something else
And now you come with new dreams in the night
With a new manifesto for living in the light
So, I follow, I follow, I make my way there
I have a mountain of troubles but you have been fair
And told me my problems are not where to hide
And they do not absolve me of the responsibility to be right
So you have your legacy
In the things that you said to me
And I would make you proud to see
That your words have made in me
A thorough desire to live
On streets of brass that breaks
And copper that shakes
On humble street
Down lesson road
Where I can learn to be
The name you gave to me.
Thank you father, senior, master of my immediate race
I bow to you as I walk toward fatherhood
In perfection, in imperfection
In voice and in flute
I have a good father and I am waiting to be good, better, my sons -the best
At fatherhood.
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