A poem I wrote….2004 I think, I remember my son 3 going on 4 had gotten into his inquisitive stage, asking question after question about everything, and all things. It was that first night when this poem rushed through my mind, and reminded me of that one moment back in Ireland when I mused about relating my crazy stories to my future children, always believing I would never make it to the age of having a family… the ignorance of youth lol 😉
THAT GUY YOU HATED
So many years ago
The voices would they whisper
“He seems nice”
“In an odd way”
Something about him that never sat quite right
Maybe it was due to his never being able
To sit quite right
A patchwork copy of the soul
Pasted into the fabric of life
Edges frayed slightly
Not exactly the right color to his surroundings
Still you seemed happy knowing he was going
Even though there was never anything there
How sad for your ignorance to want to throw a person out
Knowing they had no place to go
Just to have them away from your pride and joy
Like cutting cancer out with a butter knife
All the while thinking everything was going to be ok
It always was ok
You just never saw it for what it was
That man was not a drifter
Not a waste of space like he heard you refer to him as
Nor was he out to defile your not so virginal daughter
You lived in ignorance then
I wonder have you ever changed?
That patchwork drifter has
With every passing day
With a meeting of someone new
With every new country he visits
Each and every day does he log into his drifting mind
Those events that now unwind
Driven by emotions to drift, to search
Moved by emotions to carry on
Forever looking for that something
Not love, like you so feared
Not acceptance
The likes I never found
The questions to my answers
I thought Ireland might have held them
I was wrong
Rolling green hills still gave way to ignorant valleys
Cutting deep into the countryside
Like a clumsy man with a butter knife
Carving his way through his daughters soul
Saying his goodbyes the drifter moved on
To be forgotten quickly I’m sure
How strange he never has
His patchwork mind has logged it all down
To remember till the end
The good with the bad
Like black and white paint thrown against a wall
Sliding to the ground in a gray streak of hopelessness
A gray end mixed with bar fights
Ignorance
Train trips laden with ale
Horse races in Kildare
Drunks and empty country roads
Lovely people
Helpful people
People that would steal from you as quick as you could blink
Beautiful rolling hills
Fields filled with sheep
Young girls shouting at their children
Old train stations cold and dank
Dark hotel rooms
Fevers and drunken friends unable to help
Long nights cleaning the bar, counting stock
Long nights out in Dublin
Meeting others from distant countries
Drifting like me
Living for life and earning a keep
Wanting to be able to say one day when we are old
“I lived there once”
My experiences were not of your daughter
Your fears were shadows
Hideously beautiful attempts to keep your little girl from becoming a woman
Blocking the road for a man that claimed nothing but friendship
Your sons knew it
How sad that the teacher could not be taught
You were right about one thing, for a time
I was a homeless man
I wished to be just that but I never took what was not mine
You made me out to be a thief
A leech upon the blood of the innocent
I laughed when I left
A mixture of comedy and tragedy
I was sad to be going knowing I would never return
I was amused at how happy you were to hold the door open
A look of victory on your face
Do you still think with such shallow tones?
Maybe with time you will see the true meaning of life
Maybe not
My time has been well spent
So much more has been learned by the actions and thoughts of others
By the actions and thoughts of myself
Still you were not alone in your beliefs
Some like you that thought me a con artist
A drifter looking for someone to rob
Others knew better and helped a little, as that was all I would let them do
I the drifter
That lives in one place now
My search complete
I the drifter
That has a job and a home
A family now
That has memories of countries far away to remember
To tell my son one night before bed
Of places far away
To tell him
“I lived there once”
That shady man never to be trusted
I the drifter
That loves his son
That would give his life so he may live
I the drifter
That drifted into your home
The Devil in a suit
You would have all believe
Your voice so loud God himself could hear
It matters little really now
That was then
This is now
I am who I was to be
Still to become
You are?
The same yet a little bit older?
My words may seem bitter
Yet they are not
My words are nothing more than a telling of a tale
Of a man and that guy you hated once
For no real reason at all