Dad's Diaries

Dad's diaries are waiting
In the top drawer of a bed stand
In the places that we go
When we get lonely for an hour

The paper-thin parchment
Crunches when I turn the page
Like autumn leaves that fell
From burning trees too soon

Translucent and impermanent
The noises keep me company in every bawdy tomb

I read my favorite stories
To a girl that I won't Mary
From the time when you were thirty-two
And think of all the shit you carried

With you on your back
You never let it weigh you down
And I am hoping to remember
All the things you taught me

Back when you were still around

Dad, I see your diaries
Were written down
By someone else's hand
But I still remember

Everything you taught me
About how to be a man
You'll be glad to know
That your grand daughter

Is working overseas
Where she is farming
In a fertile land
And does it all for free

And how I almost tied your grandson
To a fence the other day
But I just pelted him with rocks
Until he bled out all the gay

You see, I'm trying hard to live my life
Just the way you told me, or at least the way I read it
In this dusty little story book where your friends
Had all your best intentions written down

Father, I forgot
To ask you how

You drank from that bloody glass
Drank from that bloody glass
And split the fish while we
Were killing kingdoms in your name

And how you loved the lonely lepers
And you Knew your Mother's Whore
When you told me that the wicked
Would not be let in your door

But you're not around to give me all he answers I might need
So I'm forced to watch as Mary takes my sixty bucks and leaves
Me with Dad's diaries