Uncles

We boys we stood side by side
And looked death in the eye
Covered in death and grime
We men looked into each others eyes

At the end of it all we would play with one another’s children,
Uncles who had seen the war

All is Well

I step outside under the high eaves of the tin roof dripping from the finally melting frost. On mornings like these as a boy I would chase deer into the forest and climb the tallest pine.

I take a piss outside, standing staring out over three distinct mountain lines demarcated in various blue hues, just now showing their forest details as the sun comes up over my back.

The deciduous trees glow orange and red like ancient fires captured in time amongst the pines. And for some reason I feel tears sting my eyes.

Her Voice

For my wife 

When my time has come
for the skiff to take me back over
the celestial sea
I ask for my wife to sing me out
She who has borne our children in womb song
and has created them with light and purpose
in tone of her treble,
she who has the voice of the Valkyrie
and they that cry Holy of Holies,
 I ask that she sing me out
Her voice as a river will comfort my flesh's fear
and sing my spirit on.
Though she may weep that I go before her
as she kneels beside the bed
 I will hear her song as I set sail
then see her face upon the other shore,
for time is no match for eternity
and eternity no match for her voice.

Crows on a horse's back

"Did you see that?"
my wife asked me as we passed a pasture.
"No" I replied.
"There were crows sitting on that horse's back"
she said
but I had not seen it.

Time is a Runner Beside Me

though I see only the path before me
and my years fall like the grass
I know time is a runner beside me
and in it I am born and dead
and alive

though I see the sky as a blanket
it is a blanket being unfurled
by time the runner beside me
and under it I am naked and clothed
and free

though my children race before me
as I begin to slow
I know time is a runner beside us
and we arrive at the beginning
together

Stevens County Verses

Old man
fixing a barbwire fence
near your red pickup in the rain
I rejoice in you

*

on the right a crow takes to the air
as a coyote crosses the road from the left
I slow to let them pass
knowing this is a cosmic connection
I may never comprehend

on being a writer

In which I discuss being a writer:

American Son

Shiva II (Vishnu)

I ponder the sea before me
the battle at my back
I close my eyes
and hear the singing sea
drown the ring of war
I am as the sea
I have no enemies
I am my only enemy
I seek in myself all wrongs
I see in others no blame
but that which I can attribute to myself
I seek to take from no one’s spirit
and they take nothing from mine
I become the restorer over the destroyer

I am become Vishnu

Caleb Mannan joins Rabble Writers writer's group

Your name is a Caleb Mannan, a Heinz 57 American writer living in Washington State. You wrote your first hot mess of a novel years ago on a dare from your beautiful bluegrass southpaw singer songwriter wife. Your three children think you are silly. Your spirit guide is your Oregon Okie grandpa who was your hero when you were a boy and died over 15 years ago. You fancy he takes the form of a crow at times. You love roughhousing poetry Tanqueray fire pine trees stars crows Miller High Life deer America music and family.

You love to write and have had your poems featured in anthologies. You are currently trying to determine if you should self publish your latest novel which has received rave rejection letters from literary agents across the States. Some of your heroes are Ray Bradbury, Tom Waits, old men, children, Robert Service, your wife, and John the Baptist. You are on a journey to make peace with the earth through writing. You want to move back to the country and own some land. The other day you spent half an hour in the backyard with your daughter watching a white balloon rise up into the blue sky until it disappeared. You see a crow. You just had a great idea you have to write down. You gotta go. 

Rabble Writers

Everybody holler! It is a good day to be alive!

The Indian elder is now decrepit and gray tailed

He sits erect in a wheelchair

his dancing legs now stiff and useless

He chants out for the children dancers

in their feathers and beaded buckskins

He chants and shouts to the white people watching

“Everybody holler! It is a good day to be alive!”

and the Indian children dancing smile at his hollering

as they weave the ancient steps

that saved their people from the plague

Falcon (They believe and turn away)

Atop the monolithic turrets of
gothic water tower jutting
circa 1931
the falcon watches the children
playing with objects in the sun

When they spy and point up at him
he stays ever so still to fool them
 into thinking he is the tower
they believe and turn away

The Lilacs are Blooming

For A.F.

She came to the tomb
to visit her religion
yet found it bare
She lingered for a moment, unsure
“The lilacs are blooming”
the stones heard her say as she left.

Whitefish Verses

In the mountains of Montana
there is a town
whose Main St. ends at the railroad tracks

On the other end of main
is the 1st Presbyterian Church
built in 1921, still standing strong
a square brick structure with stained glass windows

In the yard of the church is a rising great pine
and in this great pine a rather large raven
is rooting and cawing
shaking the whole damn tree

Winold Reiss

Winold Reiss

Winold Reiss

He put their faces to paper
without stealing their souls
when he died
the Blackfeet honored him and
scattered his ashes
near Glacier National Park
where the world first began
so that their white German immigrant
son brother
could walk with them forever

Our Love

Aye, m’lass,
our love does grow
as the ivy o’er the stones
Taking o’er fences, taking o’er roads,
aye m’lass,
Our love does grow.

January Chill

When we first moved to the mountains
we rolled up our pants and waded in the creek,
cold to the bone,
searching for fool's gold,
until our mothers scolded us
for the January chill

Longfellow's Beard

After last year of much 'poetry' and finishing my third novel, I grew sick of hearing myself think. After I finished my novel, and had edited and sent it to my beta readers (where it now currently resides), I felt the need to write still, but as I said before, I was sick of my own thoughts.
The solution, of course, was to read Robert Graves and some novels and write poetry that was stripped to the bone.
So, for 2012, I purpose that if I should write my verses of wheat and wildflowers, I should strip them to their necessity(and even less), to say as much with as little as I could.
I shall call this new collection of stripped verse 'Longfellow's Beard'.

That is all.

Lion's Mane

In the sunset
all the colors of the Lion’s mane.
My children call these colors by name.

Shiva

At times I am the god of war,
gleaming and golden, savage and brave.
I raise my sword as a scepter,
I rise above mine enemies.
Today,
I lay my tools of war beside me
in the sand at the water’s edge,
and looking out upon the singing sea,
I sit with my back to my enemies.

Fleet Foxes: Grown Ocean

Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean from Fleet Foxes on Vimeo.

Stevens County

Stevens County Verses

Painted pony under shade of dry pine,
at the foot of the mountain in a meadow.

Blue backed barn swallows swoop into the rafters
of this barn that is older than I and my fathers.

Grendel the farm dog lies in pathways in the sun,
too old and tired to move for the children.

I strode the deer trail in midday,
until a buck and a doe scattered at my trespass.

‘These wildflowers,” I say, “what are they?”
Yet I grew amongst them, I never knew their name.

In the meadows of lilting wildrye,
the cattle and deer feast together amid dilapidated barns
and mysterious mounds of stone.

Side by side, white birch and pine
rise up in the forest.

These barbwire fences across acres and acres
though decrepit never seem to fall.

I saw the mighty river from a bend in the road
that I had never known was river view.

Waylon n' me

Pork Chop

I went outside
and lay on my back
on the hot patio
in the sun.
I lifted my arm over my eyes.
I felt everything around
and in me,
the wind, the birds,
the sky, the sun,
the anxiety, the woe,
the joy, the peace,
my blood one with the sun.
It was only when
I heard the sizzle
of the pork chop
in the cast iron skillet
over the songs of sparrow
and crow and jay
that I returned indoors.

Proverb

The clatter of dishes brings the dogs to the door.

Love and Not Destruction

Through the sagebrush Grandfather,
as a child I come to you.
When the earth is once again living,
when it moves and laughs and breathes,
I will walk with you.
Oh Grandfather,
when the earth is once more
more than just a cadaver,
I will commune with you.
I will lay beside the fire
this new living earth shall usher,
usher forth with love,
love and not destruction.

Uranium

Though June,
we still see snow in the mountains.
A spirit blanket to cover
the Spokane Tribe
that slowly dies of cancer
contracted from a Cold War gash
never fully sutured
seeping Uranium that poisons
the water, the wildlife, the fish,
the native chokeberries, bitterroot,
and the ceremonial white camas root.

Our Song

Everyone one has a song to sing
And in their own voice sing it.
Let us then be a choir of chords together,
For a blade of grass withers when cut,
Yet is a basket to fill when woven.

Where the Calves of Bison Lie

Amongst the xanthous balsamroot,
purple larkspur and shooting stars,
where the calves of bison lie,
the pronghorn mother beds and bears her children
beside the roads of man.
For the coyotes know the maker of the highways
is the maker of fire and death,
and they shy from killing the pronghorn fawns
for fear of maker's machine.

LXVIII. So Sang the Blood of the Fathers (Follows 'Poetic Fathers')

So sang the blood of the fathers,
as the jawbone it slipped from my hand,
And that jawbone of Balaam’s jackass
came to rest upon bloody red sand.
From blood and bone sprang a great dragon,
rearing his ugly death’s head,
Yet I saw that he was beautiful,
for I, his master, had nothing to dread.

LXXVII. Totem

Old blue crow atop
Yellow hydrant,
Thou art faded with age.
And yet you return,
My harbinger,
Every day in my front yard.

LXXVI. Poetic Fathers

When the time had come to
Raise up my poetic fathers in praise,
I, of youth and long mane,
Suffered grievously under the burden of their law.
And taking up the jawbone of a literary ass,
I slew my fathers every one in a bloodlust frenzy.
I clove Poppa Pound in two,
I decimated Whitman’s ranks of many sons,
I tore Blake and Shelley and Wordsworth asunder,
I hacked Auden and dismembered Jeffers,
I annihilated the Beatnik Philistines,
Even laid to rest my beloved Longfellow
In my blood red mist,
The Romantics, The Modernists,
The ways of old and new I slew.
As I surveyed the carnage about me,
Chest heaving and ears ringing,
I knew that which I had done.
I wept amongst the entrails and the blood,
For I was all alone.
I became manic, wild, a madman,
I fell upon the ground and cried out as
I strove so desperately to piece my fathers back together,
Matching bloody bits and pieces.
But alas, it was not to be, the damage was too great.
In despair at seeing the savage work of my hands,
I fell upon my sword.
As I slumped upon the ground,
My blood flowed forth and mingled
With the blood of my fathers,
And this blood cried out,
Electric, rushing, raging, singing:
“Rise up young man rise up!
Do you not know that to praise your fathers is idolatry,
And to slay them is to murder,
Yet to do both is human,
And to know it is divine!
So rise up young man rise up!
For you are no longer a son,
But now a father in this bloodletting!"

LXXV. Spring Illness

One of these years
I will finally succumb to these illnesses
that ail me, aye, but once a Spring.
In that day I will hear Jeffer’s Demon klaxon call me thrice,
And leave my psoriatic skin filled with strep and sin and vice,
And I will die,
Leaving my body to the earth
And the rest for God knows only
As the angels cry as the sailors:
‘Who shall have this!’
Over my soul and spirit and heart and mind.

LXXIV. May the Law of Moses

May the Law of Moses convict you
In that you may never uphold its weight,
Just as the Gospel of Jesus compels you
With the good news that you are a saint
When your stone tablets break.

LXIII. Technology

Technology
hath made apes of us all.

LXXII. April Morning

My beard bristles as the back of a boar,
As the boar, I come back for more
coffee,
Standing on the back porch in the spring sun,
My heart full of love and my head full of lead.

LXXI. Simon's Song

For Simon Rodia

To the unknown, indefatigable,
Stumbling toward some existent light,
I sing.

With your hands you have built towers,
Towers alone you smite.

Within the darkness thou hast labored,
Thou hast cast thy light.

To the man, the hammer, the chisel,
To the spires that they bring,
I sing.


But more so to a conquering spirit,
With which a man is give.

The spirit of self hewn horizons,
Horizons he sees and wills to live.

To the man, the spirit, and the hammer,
To the courage it brings,
I sing.

My Daddies, and My Daddy's Daddies

LXX. My Daddies, and My Daddy's Daddies

The black and white bodies
Of my forefathers prostrate upon the ground
In rigor mortis clutching
At their spirit leaving earth
Is no less sobering than the day they hit the dirt.
They with once shining eyes now dulled,
Their coarse beards caked with mud,
Their useless relics strewn amongst the grass.
These are my daddies, and my daddy’s daddies,
Now just black and white spirits
And the dirt beneath my feet.

LXIX. A Toast for Violet

For Violet Beatrice Mannan, on the occasion of her 5th birthday

May you rise up as the willow,
Beside the willow and the pine.
As I raised a glass the day of your birth,
So you shall when I die.

May you grow tall in the valley,
Amongst the flowers and the grass.
Ever smiling back to my smoldering fire,
As the days begin to pass.

May you wander down the rivers
With the sun upon your face.
And when the crows obscure the sun,
My smoke will lead the way.

LXVIII. Nakedness

There is a nakedness between us
That rends a great divide.
In this nakedness I hide.

Though our Father calls out to us
Our nakedness divides.
In this dark divide we hide.

For fear is simple and hope is toil-
Between them is a great divide.
Naked knowledge begs I hide.

LXVII. Hymn for Him

I kissed your bare neck as you wept
For the given up ghost of your brother.
His body was broken but his spirit was freed
To take wing o’er the face of the river.
His body was covered, though his face was unveiled
To take wing o’er the face of the river.
These lessons of death to the living so move
The Holy Spirit within as a river.

White Horse

LXVI. Golgotha Morning

Rifle hum heartbeat thrum
sunrise
through the crooked trees
rising up like Golgatha’s
crooked teeth.

LXV. Wise Men

Wise men, thou art wicked,
For in this thing you boast:
The knowledge of knowledge above all knowledge,
Forgetting the least is the most.

LXIV. Days Like This We Spent My Friend

The days like this we spent my friend,
Smoke spewing dragons in the sun,
And poems and lores and epics and tomes
That else never saw light of day.
Days like this we spent my poet,
Conjuring up our worlds
Like gargoyles upon a Gothic spire,
Taking a smoke break in the sun.

LXIII. Hawkfather

My Father appeared to me
In the form of a hawk
And spake unto me from
His throne of rock:

“My son, the time will come
When you must slay me
With your’n bare hands.
And when you have done this,
Take from my form a feather
To twine into your hair.
Then set me upon a pyre,
And let my smoke rise unto the heavens.”

Saying this, he alit to the sky once more.

And I wept, for I was all alone.

The Days of Pagan Thunder: Osceola

My man heart has been broken Great Father,
And I must pass away.
I did that which I felt in my heart,
And now I pass away.
Why my father hast thou left me?
I die all alone.
I lay my head to slumber forever,
But I am not out for long.

The Days of Pagan Thunder: Weyland

With iron great bands have I twisted
And wrought all that I’ve been given
Until all I’ve been given I’ve twisted
Into immeasurable shape.

With forcible sinew I’s twisted
And forced to beg what others’re given
Until all of my iron being twisted
I‘s given to violence and rape.

Woe is my iron now twisted!
Woe ‘to the urges I’ve given!
As the iron and my body lie twisted
So does my soul stand agape.

LXII. Swan

White swan rise above black sky,
Leaving the burning plains.
Fly you to your mother and sisters,
To your father up above.
As the land rises up in flames,
Take you to the sky.
For you do not belong here
In the blackness and the ruin.
You belong in Eden,
Or unfettered from the ark.
Across the face of the deep with your sisters,
Bearing all the winds,
To Cuchulainn in the south.

White swan leave the black land
To your lover up above.

LXI. Gun

The cloud sky was marbled,
The cumulous sinew of the angels descending.
The sun cut the gloom in shellshot scatter
As snow awkwardly straggled along.
The sky was black and blue and white,
Drapes ripped apart or rending.
The snow crawled out from under the sun,
And the sun hid itself again
The warcloud of the angels ascending,
The day I got my gun.

LX. They That Have Been Broken

They that have been broken
Are they that have been raised
For just as was with Lazarus
They have seen the night then day.

LIX. The Pitiful Snow

It tries to snow
As a wounded deer
Scrambling and scared
From the roadside.
Would that I could
Take mercy upon you,
Would that I could take mercy.

The pitiful snow breaks my heart.

Valkyrie

LVIII. Birdsong Sunrise

For Jenny Anne, my Valkyrie


I.
Birdsong sunrise,
over these hills unto mine eyes
like my Valkrie rises.
She rises as the sun, clothed in light,
yea, my Valkyrie arises.
With babes about her garlanded,
and swaddled to her breast,
as the sun she rises.
The birds, they sing as angels,
the birds they sing for she.
Like my sun she rises,
My Valkyrie to me.


II.

I have seen the blackness,
Yea, I have seen the crows.
Yet I have seen the valley
Where within my lover grows.

I have seen the valley,
The valley of Hamon Gog.
Therein lay the bodies
Littered by my wrongs.

Yet I have seen the sunrise
Lifting o’er the dark
And my lover astride a white horse
Bearing the Savior’s mark.

LVII. Flocks

As far up as the birds go,
They of a flock fly together.
Over the buildings and under the clouds
They of the same dark feather,
Regarding not the weather.


As high up as the Tower rose,
They of one flock smote it together.
Until the Lord uttered the words
Dividing flocks and feathers,
And they scattered hither and thither.

As high up as the tide goes
The flocks they stay together,
Perpetrating wrongs and rights
To others and one another,
The flocks of the fallen together.

LVI. Cold Night

Water frozen tendril trees,
Wind lines razor face,
My air bursting forth to gust, a warhorse nostril flaring.

Orion a sparkling jewel,
Winking salacious at Selene,
She pulls aside her black cloak and light beknights her bosom.

Chief Joseph

LV. They Brake Upon Us

Spears brake upon the shields
As waves buck upon the stone.
Glittering shining shards and slivers
Splinter as yellowed bone.

They thrust a wave upon us,
Then another do they roll,
But they, they brake upon us,
Their spirits rattled with the toll.

Beards bespittled we besmirch them
To try their luck once more,
And once more they brake upon us
As the waves upon the shore.

They thrust a wave upon us,
Then another do they throw,
But they, they brake upon us,
And within our fire grows.

Let your spears come hither!
Throw at us what ye will!
Ever shall we slight you,
Safe our Keep upon the hill!

They thrust a wave upon us,
Then another rolls in gold,
But they, they brake upon us,
As the wheat falls to the stone.

LIV. I Will Lead My People Home

Great Father up above me,
help me lead my people home.
Wrapped in the wools of our fathers, I will lead them home.
From the clan of Mannanan, to the confederacy of the Iroquois, to the Norse, the Gaelic,the Saxon, the Cherokee, the crow and the hawk, the battle axe and tomahawk,
I will lead us home.

I turn to see my Norse goddess wrapped in the wools of my people,
stripes of my clan and lines of my tribe about her.
Crow feathers in her hair,
her eyes cerulean and her countenance Valkyrian,
she smiles as I lead her home.
I look upon my children, they of my tribe ascending,
for them I go on,
they laugh up at me as I lead them home.

Now in the silence,
they aslumber in the wake of the fire,
Great Father up above me,
I ask of you,
help me lead my people home.

LIII. That Which is Written Upon my Heart

I speak not that which appeals to the righteous,
Nor that which appeals to the humanist,
But I speak that which is written upon my heart.

LII. Fire

The edge of the mountains rips the sky
And the sky bleeds fire.

The air crackles with cold and burns the lungs
Burns the lungs like fire.

The dragons encircle the earth in a ring
Within a ring of fire.

The humans lose faith and feast on flesh
Under a halo of fire.

God looks on and trembles not
For He created fire.

Jed's Place (The Kingdom of Middle Tennessee)

LI. The Kingdom of Middle Tennessee

Hawk in tree
Watching over the kingdom
Of Middle Tennessee
Over behemoth bones
Of stone cut roads
Lined with white crosses where he fell

Hawk on wing
Signals of peace to bring
Over wind stripped trees
Scratching at the breeze
Deep within the kingdom
Of Middle Tennessee

Hawk Cherokee
Flying over the kingdom
Of Middle Tennessee
Over deep pitted sadness
Cold tombstones and madness
Over the land we love and sorrow

Hawk, now sing
His spirit for to bring
Cover broken hearts
The death that tore apart
The children in the kingdom
Of Middle Tennessee


.II

The god fell far from home.
Hawk, bring his spirit home.
Over red rivers and tobacco fields
Over the smoky mountains
And clashing shields,
To the pine and his childhood river
Unto your brother crow
His spirit to deliver.
Hawk, bring the young god home,
That in death he may not rest alone.

L.Praise for the Pine

Praise for the pine
Atop the ridge
That overlooks the windswept gulch
For it has risen
Atop the ridge
In forbearance before we were born

Praise for the snow
That under pine lays
A blanket that covers the earth
For this snow
Every year knows
Its young son pine again

XLIX. Goodbye

Crows in the cold morning sky
O’er skeletons and grandfather pine
Crows in the cold flat sky

Crows in the pale blue sky
Long spent tears from Odin’s eyes
Crows in the azure sky

Crows in the white winter sky
Parting lashes of Sunna’s great eye
Crows in the dawn’s white eye

Watching the crows go by
In the knife cold morning light
Waving them on, goodbye

XLVIII. Only in Words

Only in words of purple planes are my fires quenched,
Only in routes I write myself out ' the eye of the evil finch.
Only in words on risen birds is my soul sated anew,
On sentient lips in living sips I pour my hemlock brew.

XLVII. The Sword Devours Forever

The hand begets the hammer,
The Hammer begets the sword.
And the outstretched hands cry out:
“Shall the Sword Devour forever?”

XLVI. They Pass Not Words to Their Children

They pass not words to their children,
Neither wisdom nor knowledge do they impart.
They create stunted sons and withered daughters,
Children with no lineage, a tree without its roots.
They do it not in anger, nor do they do it with purport,
But do it for lack of understanding, they fatherless as well.

My Fathers!
Why hast thou forsaken me to silence?
Why hast thou built towers with your own hands,
Yet showed me not to hew a single stone?
Why hast thou seen wars and foreign civilizations,
Yet of these things I know not?
My Fathers, my Fathers, why hast thou forsaken me?
Forsaken me and my brothers to chained tongues
And palsied guns and empirical rage of our own understanding.

They that pass not words to their children are fathers
To sons of none and daughters of the dead,
They themselves the sons of none propagating
The ignorance of their silent fathers by their own silence.

XLV. My Smoke

Over mountains has
My smoke drifted
Into the eyes of those
Who cry for their dead.
Yea, my smoke has sifted
Through the trees that ring the dead.
Over seas
My tender heart is lifted
Unto the animals of man,
Crying for their father.
Yea, my tender heart is broken
As Adam’s animals upon his sin.

With my sons I made the clearing
In horror to recoil,
Yea my smoke had drifted
To a battle plane unknown,
Broken jutting erected graves
Lying over bone.

XLIV. Lights

We lit lights for the ones we’d lost,
Ne’er knowing they sat upon peaceful plane
Under purple gloam
And watched our lights rise into the sky
As the stars hung in the heavens.

Then they didst turn with smiles
Back to their gentle fires upon peaceful planes
And whisper:
“Soon they will come home,
Soon we shall see them again.”

Poetry Contest

Brothers and Sisters- our friend Angela over at My Poetry Place is hosting a poetry contest. To enter, follow this link: http:My Poetry Place Contest


Angela is a fair judge, and has great taste, we would know, because we won first prize last time. So get on over there!

Veterans Day

My dad did 2 tours in Vietnam as a Navy medical Corpsman attached to the Marines. I'd like to say happy Veterans Day to my dad, and post this poem my brother Jake wrote for our dad this Vets Day:

My Victory's To Sing

By Jacob Isaac Mannan

My father is a Veteran of Vietnam,
1 cog in a 20-years machine,
The steel of the Greatest War’s assembly
Shipped home in the Cold War’s sling,
My father was his victory’s to sing.

My father is a thinning line to the Viet Cong,
1 mL in a 20-years vaccine,
A mask around the U.S. Navy corpsman
Tying back to the head trauma’s wing,
My father was their victory’s to sing.

My father is the fishing hole to the Heartland,
1 drop from a 60-years canteen
A lost boy to the Greatest Generation
Finding peace in the Oregon Oak’s swing,
My father is our victory’s to sing.

My father is a Veteran of Vietnam,
1 Doc to the 20-years Marine
A young face on the Guerilla War’s memory
Retiring home in the arthritic hands’ wring,
My father is his victory’s to sing...

My father is a flower in the Field Hospital,
1 mind in a 20-years quarantine,
A peaceful thought in the color of the trauma
Whiting out to the chapel bells’ ring,
My father is my victory’s to sing.

-Dedicated to Kent Foster Mannan, U.S. Navy Corpsman

Jake's Blog: Song of Hope and Hell

XLIII. This Fire I Pass

This fire I pass, the torch and the staff,
The sword and the axe,
The Roman and Saxon,
My children,
This I pass to thee:
The Land to take Dominion,
The stars to stoke the Heavens,
The fire to gird the horizon.
The hammer and spike,
Ye shall work with great might
To erect and to smite:
For there is no demon,
Whether Cerebreal, Spiritual, or Electric
That we shall not slay
And that Minotaur skull bedeck
Our door post.
Fear not my children!
Your Momma and I give you a legacy!
No legacy born of perfection,
But of the Human Stuff:
Love and suffering, pain, death,
Freedom and Joy.
Yes-this I give to you.
And when darkness
Rears its ugly head
And battledust clots you eyes,
You look back, and you look into
My eyes.
Yes-
You turn and you look into
My greying eyes, and upon my worn chevrons.
And you take that fire from me
And you go on,
You run now,
Go on now,
Run,
Fly.
And as my bones hit the earth,
You do not look back,
But you take to the sky,
For this fire shall live forever.