There was a
time so long ago
it's as if I was
someone else.

Back when
he was all
of what I had hoped
to become.

Throughout the years
he prospered as a
working man.
Which brought along
the burdens
of becoming a family
man.

As he fell
into the horror that
is "The Domesticated Life",
I was on the
streets doing
what I knew how.
Or surviving beneath the
long gun on a desolate
prison yard amongst
the souls that man
had condemned

As the drum roll
of the life that
is America
played itself
out like a re-run you've
seen too many times.
The working man
he had always been
began to turn
more into a drinking man.

There was nothing
romantic or
exciting about
his drinking.
Nothing good ever came
out of it.
Nothing like
when Hemingway
did it.
Or when Bukowski
took hold of
the bottle,then
mastered it.

His demise
approached like
a slow moving
swell.
Slowly gathering
up all he had
accumulated
throughout
his years
of labor.
Steadily
gathering
the momentum
needed
to fall a man.

And when that
wave of failures
and alcoholism
finally hit
the shores of
his reality.
His will had already
been weakened
and the little bit
of fight he had
left in him refused
to put up
his fists in
defense.

I bore witness
to that which has
to be far more
painful to see than
death.

I watched a man give
into the pull of insanity
as he threw it all away
without even the slightest
hint of grace.