1975: No. 8

One end leads to beginnings anew.

The Grandfather

The Frenchman couldn’t have been that tall-
given our shorter stature.
Nonetheless, heavy do we fall.
I imagine he is no more than thirty
on the other side of the world
fighting for the interests of the red, white and blue.
I wonder how he met my grandmother in ‘68.
However so, his son did not speak of him fondly.

I imagine it to be another day
in the lush, dense, humid jungles of my homeland.
The sun shines bright, beaming down on the Frenchman.
Perhaps he is on patrol
or perhaps he is laying siege
to his brothers and sisters in another life.
As the twenty year war ran its final lap,
the Frenchman could run from fate no more.

Was he caught by surprise?
Perhaps by an unsuspecting civilian,
perhaps by a mine,
perhaps by a pit of vipers,
or punji sticks spreading infection.
Or maybe by a hail of steel, copper and lead.
Was he buried among the dead?
Was his dying thought of his son?

There is only so much one could say
about a soul they never knew.

The Father

The fox stomped in the same jungles that buried his father,
carrying food and water miles so they could eat.
He shined shoes and drove taxis,
even once offering to sell himself for his weight in gold
to which grandma wasn’t having it.
He was the eldest-
the one son of two siblings.
Sacrifice was a life-long duty of his.

At my age,
he and a handful of relatives
threw themselves across the world
for a dream-
the American dream.
Atlanta was their choice.
They spent their days in a factory,
living the life his father died for.

The fox, being as sly as he is
wanted more from the fruits of life.
Like his father before him,
he learned to deal death.
Instead of bullets out of brownings
it was salt and sugar
sliced by the cards of people
paying the price for their soul.

He slung rocks like David-
the world his goliath.
He fed the streets
and they returned the favor-
thirty-thousand a week.
They traveled to Vegas to clean it.
The fox was used to dishing addiction
yet here he found his.

The glory days couldn’t shine forever
as the eagles caught up to the fox-
now likened to a dragon by the tattoo on his rear.
The eagles were not another obstacle the dragon could blow away.
Just as he had served the streets
the eagles had come to serve him
an unhearty, yet deserving meal.
RICO, ten years.

Where is the line between a man
knowing better and doing as he must?
Do we blame him?
A dog always finds his way back home
the same can be said of dragons.
His den was now North Carolina.
Nothing hatched there without his say-so.
Freedom was a privilege renewed by the eagles
so back to business
with his brothers
he went.

Somewhere along the long road of life,
the dragon found a flower.
Together, they tackled life,
eventually creating it-
first the eagle
inked on his right shoulder
then the spider
embedded into his left shoulder.

For a while,
they lived.
Not prospering
not struggling
just living-
the dragon still in his ways.
Slowly, then all at once
his world unraveled
for he lost what gave it to him.

We never truly get over things-
only learn to live with them as they are.

How does a man drown
out his sorrows
after the passing of his mother?
One day after at that.
One can only imagine
where the mind of the dragon was at.
Surely not with him-
certainly everywhere or nowhere.

The day following
he ventured into a bar.
The barkeep should’ve chosen better words.
I know not what was said
only the outcome.
The barkeep had a rearranged earlobe
and a botched nose job-
courtesy of the dragon.

The dragon was never one
to leave a job unfinished.
He returned in the night-
when the bar was empty.
Entering the establishment to make sure it was so,
he sliced his arm on the broken glass of the door.
Armed with the second amendment
he lit it up like the fourth of July.

The spider and the eagle-
no more than five and seven
perched atop the balcony
of their modest apartment.
All at once,
eagles barged into the apartment
their uniforms said “SWAT” and “FBI.”
They came for the dragon.

The dragon was checkmated.
yet wise in his defeat,
he ensured everything disappeared-
nothing to link him to his crimes.
This time,
the dragon almost won
against the eagles.
Arson, two years.

The Son

And then there was three-
the flower, the eagle and the spider.
One never truly understands the difficulties
until they see it first hand-
until they live through it.
Such is being
a single mother
of two.
It took the spider a great many years
to understand this himself
alongside reckoning with the effects
of a man
who never had a father
to show him
left from right
right from wrong.

Now of greater age-
and surely wisdom,
I see the dragon clearer-
why he does what he does
why he moves the way he does.
Some things I admire
others are parts of a man
I will never be.

Nonetheless,
I have the utmost respect
for a man who came here-
nothing to him but his last name
of which I share-
to build a better life
for him and his.