As they grew older they grew further away
Withholding their love
Remote, with apparently little to say
No words, no tears, no kind of stuff
Falling from their distant lives
Living with new thoughts, lovers, wives.
A troupe of sons, gambling with time!

Alexander was a rotten son of a brilliant father
Misled by a mother’s lies
Into an oedipal outrage. Spurred to violence, rather
Then be a man he became a legend, pursued by biting flies.
Betrayal often leads to success,
The betrayer a psychological mess.

The love of a child evaporates
Evident in the lives of kings
The urge for power saturates
Ignores duty, gratitude, those kind of things.
But hell! So what?
We once, objects of their beaming infant smiles, received such a lot.

OK, Richard the First left his father to die alone,
John ripped the money from the dead man’s purse,
They then fought each other for the throne
Making a family feud undeniably worse.
Throughout history, the mothers taking new ambitious lovers
Caused greater angst amongst whole generations of brothers.

Families are rarely friends: brother fights brother
Sister quarrels with sister, battling incessantly,
Despising each carefully chosen lover
Examining each other critically.
The success of one initiates gloom,
A show of brilliance, a thunderous rain-wrenched boom.
  
Compared to great and legendary figures
Our problems are played out beneath a dimmer light
We drown our thoughts with liquor
Squabble like screeching bats in the night
No grabbing of swords, fastening of armour, beribboned horses
Our mundane arguments have tiny causes.