I never belong here,

Born in captivity,
Fanged, genetic ferocity,
Wasted circling purposeless, the caged savannah,
Intensely drab midwestern city--Omaha--zoo.

Always felt misborn,
Broken beasts reaching for Some life semblance,
How does one become, be
So misplaced?
Wildness bursting
Only to be struck, condemned.

Sometimes I want to die,
I’d rather my energy be
Dirt embraced.
A Black-eyed Susan
In Hanging basket
Adorning the Savannah cafe;
Above crying children
Beauty roaring.

 Grandpap Carson in the Field & Boy Seated on a Stump Watching

Listen here, you mean bastard,

What’s done is done,

But I will not simply forgive for my sake,

I will hold you accountable at my own expense.

 

It’ll be even more difficult now

Since you’ve gone to grave:

Robert E. Carson,

I’m here above

Genetically linked, separated

By 6 feet of earth and eternity.

 

I saw you tilling leaves in the fall,

And mumbling grace with a long-jowled face

Behind a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes.

I think you read Ranger Rick to me once,

And then expected me to read it to myself thereafter.

Passionate about boring things like Presbyterianism, baseball, golf, and eggplant—

Loved cheese and God’s anger, but didn’t exude sharpness or Jesus.

An ungraceful, fleshy, mole-spotted

Passionless educator focused on forms and rules.

You would have rather been a farmer,

But a plague wiped out all your chickens, leaving you broke.

You saw me as my father, didn’t like me,

Even though I was a beautiful, innocent boy named after you.

You criticized my mother because she wasn’t her sister.

You imposed some pain that you could not speak;

How many did you hurt?

I still see you

Growing green beans; 

Standing within the rows, conjuring, wiping your forehead

With a snow white hanky.  Seated on a stump,

I watched just as angels 

Gaze upon God.

 

There was always a girl in my mother

The way there’s a boy in me

Still sitting bored, watching powerless, waiting dumb

For you to see me

And love me. 

I hate that. I hate you for that.

You cruel bastard.

 You are Healing When

You are no longer running

For your life in 5 am moonlight,

Or falling asleep via Miller High Life;

When you are no longer exploding

Like a delicate puffball,

At the slightest unexpected touch,

Injecting toxic spores into the gentle breeze.

                                       And after that lifetime, another one:

 Tempest trembling

Sultry tears wash your neck and face, 

Sinking march always homeless 

It seems in May rains;

Pouring over books,

Candlelit garage meditating

Silence housing

Night’s aching echoes;

Amygdala learns to signal 

Prefrontal Cortex rather than your Hypothalamus;

Reality is presently grounded

Rather than past rooted.

                                                               And after that lifetime, another one:

Orient towards light

Laughing, listening, focusing, 

Conveying I’m here connected to you--

Accepting healthy vulnerability. 

Next, drain blood, as if you have cancer,

And strain out all the lead

Till light calm falls over you like dew

And spring water pools in your heart. 

And finally realize resilience is

A choice admiring you each morn in the mirror;

That all the elements of your trauma

Must be cradled like a beloved child in your lap.

 The Abandoning 

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity…” --Henry David Thoreau

When I left I didn’t look back, walking down the tunnel to the aircraft with bulging suitcase--the one you bought me for high school graduation--a strange gift.  I didn’t look back on purpose--of course that purpose wasn’t clear through clenched-jaw tears.  Wasn’t clear until now--20 years later as I stand in the backyard pulling weeds.

It was anti-climatic, but revenge is always a better idea than reality.  That’s why--revenge.  But it was a kamikaze type; I had no better weapon than my own destruction.

I left you the way you left me crying in the playpen, the crib, the dark...a spectator to dysfunction, watching you run out the door to your mistress rendezvous.  Left me with a propped up bottle.  Did you think you would get away with that?  So rampant, egotistical, apathetic. 

I was left unheard.  Voiceless.  Silence became my solace.  When those that should hear you refuse to listen, you stop speaking aloud, you become your own.

And you don’t turn around.  You left me, I left you.  That is our father and son relationship.   

What does a father think as he watches his son depart in a moment that encapsulates a lifetime?  Sees him swallowed by the sky; what did you think, father?

Are we even now?  Are we ever even?  What happened to you for you to abandon me?  The kind of abandonment covered up by cash, power, denial--the kind of abandonment that leaves you on a strange boat in darkness while it drinks the night away--the kind that never plays ball with you or asks you how you feel.  

When I walked down the runway without looking back did you finally feel--were overwhelmed by darkness, the way I was--did you finally feel enough despair to make us even?