A Prodigal Son
Here lies a Prodigal Son, born in the South to spend his karma in the West, traveled back South to reclaim his fate and faith, welcomed to rest as a loved descendant of the Plains.
And if he were an Indian, a merchant spirit bound down to the hearth, or bloodletting out the pronounced dead of his horde, would he look like a creature born from the scorn? Maybe so, maybe not, maybe none of the above.
So here lies a Prodigal Son.
All the silence and flow, uninterrupted by violent shaking racing anxiety fuel on fuel on more fuel for thoughts driven misty mad and overcast but it now slips by unnoticed or unmarked and untraced and I am immovable, my spirit still.
So what about the things inside? The wrapped essential solitary refinement of silence and distance from the smatter chatter I hear from the mailbox to the railyard, men and women with nothing to say, coupled doubloons found scattered on the island of pinnacle shores.
What are the conditions that allow me to think, free to roam and unearth the fossils of my mind — buried and turned to stone by time and waste and energy created?
I am a Prodigal Son. Born of no one. Born to everyone.
_+=_Themata In Situ”
It’s one of those days lived in black and white
Beneath the gray clouds and the approaching nite
The prodigal son resents what has been done
On his behalf so he rebels against the epitaph
It’s naïve and ungrateful
Tired, worn out and shameful
But this suburban middle-class home feels inauthentic
to a young man living easy without struggle
He wants struggle, a life between tenderness and muscle
Brought up with sex, drugs and rock n roll on his tongue
He’s so angry, so high strung
Always with a heart to serve
But there is no one, nothing left that deserves
Traveling the world one day he ended up
In a border town in Asia thinking of all that’s fucked up
Still he managed to realize what’s right in this life
And returned home hoping to rectify his strife
Through good deeds and a timeless stream
Of writing and singing
And poverty dreaming
Forgive me father
I have no meaning
Just want to live
Simply breathing.
_+=_Prodigal Savior”
Every other year or so a painted-face pol dressed head to toe
in neon lights and asterisk signs
comes walking up the street named after a king
and as the Archangel he pretends to know of these things –
sacrifice, the streets, history.
Well, ain’t it just like the prodigal son,
taking again when he returns home?
Every other prophet or so has bleached his skin to milk what is owed
to movie stars who play the part but never imagined
the results counted on one hand
and as Lazarus he pretends to believe these things –
faith, abandoned homes, justice.
Well, ain’t it just like the prodigal son,
taking again when he returns home?
Every other loss or so a hero dies young or so we’re told
even if the old hang-on to their uses
still playing a hand dealt under the table
and as the Good Samaritan he pretends to sell these things –
drugs, railroad love, charity.
Well, ain’t it just like the prodigal son,
taking again when he returns home?
