BECOMING THE MAN MY FATHER ALWAYS WAS
(for Brian D)

Each night
I would follow you

through the rituals
of what you had to do

being Daddy.

I wanted to be Daddy too.

Mimicking your gait
becoming an exact

copy
of you

trailing along
in your footsteps

like a lone seagull
following in the wake

of some great ship
of state

watching the water
burn

'til it was all bubbles

then letting it
calm down

before filling my mother's
hot water bottle

carrying it to her side
like a lover's gift.

I was
your little shadow.  

She'd always smile:
"Thank you Danny! "

"That's alright love"
was always the answer.

These the ritualistic words
in the hot water bottle ceremony.

Then he'd teach the clock
to ****

adjusting it with his hands
and wind up Time

so that it spit tick & tocks
all through the night

then go lock doors
turn keys
draw bolts.

"That's it, son!"

I used to imagine
being you

and now I am
my own man

winding up Time

bringing my missus
the gift of a hot water bottle

(the gift of me)  

both equally
heart warming.

'Thank you Donall! '
she always smiles.

'That's all right love! '
I always answer.

Me the man
I am

because of you.

The night is speared
with splinters from
the brutish bore
that scarred
Atlanta's heart.
It is an over told tale
that fails to adequately
express itself.
There where she fell
feeling all
is where she lost
the only one
whom she thought
she could truly love.
Though all pursued
that swift footed muse,
sought to use,
and abuse her mighty heart,
it was my golden apple,
my forbidden fruit
of Eden's garden
filled with juicy wisdom
and sweet succulent knowledge
that won her.
Intelligence that sought to
empower her to
know that though
I long to love her
physically and passionately
my truest desire
is to see her elevated
not on a pedestal of adulation
for an ideation,
some fake iteration
but to see her truest self-exposed
and the heart of her art
allowed to bloom brighter
then that heavenly orange fire
we all call Helios.

The moon has turned his dark on me.
But I still beg to use his pale eyes
fetching the last glimpses of desire.
And even if you no longer care for
my morning kisses on your thighs
and my moonlight caresses in the night.
I still need to feel
the thrumming harmony
of you slipping inside my shields.
How deeply you’ve plunged into
the inner core of me.
Perfect fit and yet
a distant hologram of
a lover held in my dreams alone.

I’ll never be fulfilled.
unless I forget your splendor.
You shine, like no other.
Your bright was my ultimate high.
And within all my incapable
and impotent denial.
I did try to rub away
the golden fingerprints of you.
But now I’ve come to despair
that they will ever disappear.