Father
-- Angelino © 1980
Stolen continent
Of countless dreams
Lost among the herd
So many sheep
Boggling a shepherd’s mind
Saw the soothing Sicilian seas
Bathe the mountainous jagged edges of Abruzzo
Give difficult birth to
Father’s handsome features
Whose chestnut eyes sweetened
The nights of many a whore
Their thighs absorbing the fear
Of a motherless youth
With the street proud strut
Hiding an artistic soul
Whose secrets longing
To be discovered
Stayed hidden
Startled by a world growing up around him:
Gypsy dancer
Seducing the morning out of the gray
Urban winters
With songs
Whose voice clings to kitchen walls
Like frightened kittens to surrogate wool
Whose teeth grind
Out messages
To the night gods
To save him from anger
The large carpenter’s hands
Making sacrifice on the altar
Of mother love
Giving up his children to confusion
Father is a refugee
In the cellar
Drinking his tears
Not spilling them
Unable to emerge
Clean from the confessional
He seeks the light
Of the kitchen
The door of which
Gives difficult birth to
Father’s sensitive features
Whose chestnut eyes
Give evidence
To the once powerful
Child the mother
Left behind
In the stolen continent
Of countless dreams
Lost among the herd
So many sheep
Boggling a shepherd’s mind.
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