Stroking back the cream colored hair and staring into colorless eyes.
I see the future, the past, and slowly turn away for something better that was not there.

Holding her chin aloft, I smiled.  I felt nothing but hate.
But that hate turned into fear and that fear paralyzed all emotions,
and drowning I turned away to run.

Forsaken by family, forlorn by friends.
I asked "Why"?
"Because" was the answer, and it wasn't good enough.

Withdrawn from the world. No childhood, no love.
Locked in a room with no key, escaping from reality.
Reveling in fantasy!

Looking to be free of me.

A parakeet sits, with colorful wings
and sweet dreams of grandeur
now shattered in vain.
It's dreams are of blue skies and of billowing clouds
which it sees everyday
through the bars that surround.
And only to someone, who's been there before
do the eyes tell the story of someone forlorn.

The lion does walk with bright golder mane
and a remembrance of a kingdom
he lost one dark day.
He remembers of tall grass and plentiful game,
and a roar that sent shivers
now no longer the same.
And those eyes tell a story, as he walks to and throw
of a kingdom once had and a freedom once known.

And me?  I'll just sit here for I truly know.
The story the eyes tell and the hearts mournful woe.

The dawn breaks over the horizon
and a new life has been born.
As easy as the morning begins the day
the birth begins the life.

The stillness is disturbed abruptly
and a baby cries out with its new found life.
A flower begins to grow with that morning light
just as a growing soul brightens two peoples love.

The high noon sun beats down hard
as hard as a teens heart that's held by pressure.
This time begins the feeding of all
especially the feeding of the ones mind with knowledge.

Then the sun slowly diminishes into the land
like a book, finished or not, it is slowly closed.
Surrounded by darkness, the sun goes down
but the soul, it rises, eliminating the heavens.

Seen black and cold
with eyes worn and scratched on his surface from time.

Taken for granted are the words that he teaches,
and forsaken are the sentences she shows.

The world's future comes before him.
What he has to tell, and whether they remember
will decide their fate.

At times he is a disciplinary whose words are bold and strong.
An assayer of the past and the things that have gone wrong.

He takes upon the troubles of the one who speaks his mind;
puts into words what cannot be said to his future kind.

For years he'll take upon this task, and when his time is done;
a creature of velvet so soft and dark
will destroy his hard earned work into a pile of dust.

Oh how child's eyes do change
when mortal presence shown
when realism takes away
that inner lasting glow.

To watch the shadow cross their face,
and small minds narrow down.
To see them count short seconds 'way
and will the hands back 'round.

Their lips do part in questioning
the reason for it all.
My answer given faithfully
if afraid why live at all.

And if no answers good enough
To send you on your way
Then in a blink it will be done
and in regrets you'll lay.

Fatherhood, that long and rugged path made fruitless by the stubbornness of my seed, leaves only the dreams of baseball diamonds, campfires, and knowledge taken with such esteem that you feel false in its exchange.


I fret those years of future promises, a paternal vow rebutted in the headstrong nature that only youth can have, and pledges made to sever the sins and failures of the fathers, father as lessons learned to the son, lost to the dogged nature of my genes.


Held firm by the bonds of man I am a spectator to the infinite rehearsal of our lives, that neither leather lash nor boisterous voice can dissuade us from our course.  I can only weep in the hopeful darkness of that trepid future I clutch to so dearly.