Searching (Part 3)
Before his death
Daddy promises me he would return from the afterlife
To prove to me that god is real
I don’t subscribe to such notions
yet
I can admit that on
many a still night
dreamy emotion swirled through my
imaginations and hopes
Intentionally
I look for him
Hope for him
Open myself to abstract glimpses
willing to piece together the mundane nothings
to create clues of his presence
I listen carefully while
contouring the waking life and sleep
Maybe he’s somewhere in the middle
Maybe if I pretend not to hear him I will
Maybe
Maybe we need to talk
There are things we still need to discuss
beyond this irrelevant death and god shit
things we need to iron out
Sometimes
Sometimes I can hear him call my name
Its only a dying earthbound echo of comfort and want
It’s been years now
There has been nothing
Nothing to flesh out my hopes
Nothing to flesh out his claims
just silence
Oh
but it was that one time....
Petty (Part 4)
... Yes that one time
A singular clue of the afterlife presented itself
on the very night Daddy died
Near my home
I see a woman who I have never seen before
She stands waiting
She is tethered to a delicate leash
On the end of that leash lives a more delicate dog
She hurries the dog along to do its business
She calls this dog Oliver
My father’s birth name is Oliver
This potential karma collard pet relies on a woman
for warmth
for food
for shelter
for protection
A woman who allows her pet
to lay at her feet and praise only her
A woman who has the power to incite fear with
angry voice and judgmental drumming finger
My father
short-leashed by “mere woman”
My father
reembodied in a delicate powerless existence
My father
being rushed through any of his business
Snipped from his primal nature and power
Bred away from his prized savagery
incarnated into this small insignificant sniveling
pet
My father
The man I know
is a self-domesticated feral creature
If this dog is a sign of the afterlife for me to heed
god and heaven remains a mystery
But Hell
On the very night of Daddy’s death
Hell screeched of her existence
If there is a god
it is brilliantly petty