NPM.3 - Late Grandfathers, Not Gone

Choose Mom's laughing Buddha on a boat with a warlock's medallion
or Dad's rail-thin Grimace with fists
and a flask, but
Both loved to dance and
both lived in houses they'd rather been
forever running from because
they were Men, goddammit, and that's
what Men did.

The fat man and the skinny guy
sunburnt as fallow farmland
and beached beaches
and all the small sin swept into
a great big pile under
God's hateful, glaring eye
and then buried with family in some
Midwestern backyard
or scattered like fish food over
warm Mexican seawater.

Gone from sight, brushed to the far dark
corners or under the rug but
talked about often, usually with booze
Toasted often
we get toasted and toast them and
talk about them often.

Carl the Methodist.
Jack the Presbyterian or Catholic or What-Have-You
Two Major-League All-Time Drinkers
Two Faithful Terriers,
dead as fuck and
long in the ground / short in the water
by the time i started making memories.
The Mean Man a blur and the
Meaner i never met.

All the same, i know them
i know them well
i know them from night terrors and whirlwind
neverending benders and tasting
my own salty metal blood
and sailing and fishing and driving and fighting
and fucking and running through the corn and riding horses
and cutting a billion goddamn rugs into sample scraps
for happier couples.
I know them from Iowa and California
and Scotland and the Mississippi and Spirit Lake and Cortez.

I know them from every bullshit gauntlet
tossed at my feet that i
kicked dirt on instead of running from
because I'm a Man, Goddammit.


...
this one's kinda long, i guess. but i think it's the best thing i've written in months. maybe i'm finally getting used to writing while stone sober.
-andy