8/14/2019 Return to Freudian Association/A Fading Memory of My Father

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“Junkie Farm”

Twenty-two and One hundred-fifty pounds

of regret burdened upon my needle-inked shouldersI, bent, bruised toes, crawl with fingers

would be red of blood if not so blackened by earthly dirt and feces;

Through a town my father's

 peers abandoned,

like he did years before I knew

the bitter taste of Thrice Be Sistersspittle sizzled on the fire of free will.

Children I once laughed with,

 buried in the clouds of mother's milk,

grown now wilted in their planters,

grown now dust upon their mouths;

offer me to memories of orangefields, and little league; fields

of dirt distraction where myfather rested psycho stance

in the rear-view mirror of my mother's van:

that night I caught a whiff 

of harlotry on the breath of 

god's good grace.

Twenty-two until dawn breaksI stumble foot mouthed kissing

fetid feet of future feature mistresses:

so might I blind them 'hind a guise of addict lies and needle tales.

France and England,

 New York and Scotland,

mountainous Kentucky breastsI've suckled to nourish wounds

indebted me while a floating embryo

I laid: waiting to lip-taste change

winds wrought of the razor blades

my grandmother wove around

my father's brother's broken neck.

 All ya haff ta do is grab der neck reeeaalll tight-like,then just give'em a quick whipparound like,

and...POP!

Chicken necks crack easy as negro necksin nooses! she'd cluck and clatter round

the fireplace, where hung her bigotry,

 blind flags of history and sweet candies

to soothe the sting of her mother's words.

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8/14/2019 Return to Freudian Association/A Fading Memory of My Father

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Twenty-two while dawn's throwing

cocks into a frenzy, my fingers, would

 be red of chewing if blackened

days of unrelenting worry hadnot worn them black and Midnight

 bluesy; stay their hold upon the fence

 post of my father's junkie farm.

Twelve years waiting, wantonly

wishing for penny wells to willingly

release the goldfish I sacrificed

that day, running through the park,

tossed shoulder side into that nebulousinfant image of my father's face, which behind

the ski mask robbed our pantry late in

winter. After all his crop-lies planted

in October failed to break 

flower through all my youthful days of dirt and mothballs; five years

on run from old bald men and prison

tats, shy of long beards and Harley

rides: I keep two pence coat-pocketedin queue, an offering from fingers would

 be flesh if not raw of rubbing anxious thoughts

into their palms, in case upon the end of my

Father's junkie farm I find;

two palms of rot extended from the Netherworld,

each in hold of mine father's eyes,

two pence, if a penny that I may offer, bent,

 bruised toes,

with my black and bleeding fingers,

Offer pay of passage through River Styx, an act of mercy in lieu of words

I'll, you'll, we'll never have the courage

to exchange in person.

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