work in progress

A father,
Guided in a sea of cheap windfalls and bided moments:
Down on his knees, second guessed
Into killing a little more passion: more dreams
Remonstrating to be known
Amid the flares of tomorrow, heaped against the sky
Like a flock of birds shocked into flying
By a small fear,
Only to be trapped by the hunter.

A father,
With his son tethered to him,
Ready to meet his Maker
Over a deal with his conscience:
It had resigned to make room for the Devil,
Who was waiting at the end with a package filled with the finality
Of an answer
To his problem

Of living with gold
Without a warmth of feeling;
Of working in old,
Without the pleasure of youth;
Of dealing with pain,
Without a blanket of tears;

Father and son,

With both hands slipped of their reins on the years,
Not a lighthouse yet spotted to quiet their fears--

They drifted to shores,
From Vietnam to Khost;
His father and he;
Two kindred ghosts,
On a ship to the seams,
Ripped apart by the past,
They lit up the sails,
Took truth and stood fast--

Two crewmen spotted the ray of light cutting across the storm: a lighthouse,
Or an angel,
Sweeping it's golden arms over the earth: "it must be St. Peter",
Said the boatswain;
The chief mate, leaning over the railing of the sternwalk,
Instead proclaimed,
"this is Theseus, son of Poseidon-- Pantheon heard
The supplications of the crew,"
In that desperate moment no rumor was proved.

The father,
Set to fire the wreckage of the ship, observing the scenes of a young morning;
The twilight revealing a mountain, a forest surrounding it, and fallow land in open fields;
The crew, hours ago swallowed by the sea, would not follow,
Father and son to a house,
Built near the mountain.
A cup full of warfare
Drawn out of the fountain,
Held to his lips by an old, steady hand,
The Devil sat waiting for the ignorant to stand,
Face-to-face with his tyrants:
Against the human tide,
His face full of anguish,
His courage can't hide,
The Antichrist baited,
And tasted his drink,
Of marching poor men,
And blood-thirsty kings.