Forgiven
He said:
I am so ashamed
My son would always ask
“Daddy, why do you work so much?”
He wanted my time, he wanted my touch
I didn’t know how to explain
Ten hours work a day
Builds up so much stress, so much pain
I couldn’t just go right home
I had to have a few
Watch the game with my guys
So I could try to come home
Without that glazed look in my eyes
At least that’s what I told his mother
I couldn’t tell my son
He was already under the covers
I said to him:
I am so proud of you
When Katrina came
And washed away your hometown
You spent your vacation
Down by the riverside
Gutting houses
Taking them down so they could stand back up
Lighting a lamp
To guide the way back home
Everyone’s got a history
That’s no mystery
Even the least of us
Has a beast in us
She said:
I am so ashamed
The men, they made those sounds
And I was listening
The sweat on my forehead was glistening
I had no pride
I let just anyone inside
Me
Daddy’s little girl
I gave pleasure to the whole world
And got nothing in return
I said to her:
I am so proud of you
No job, sometimes no home
Your three children and you were one
Like a team
Like a fist
If someone gave them so much as a slap on the wrist
Your fangs were bared
Their cheek was kissed
Everyone’s got a history
That’s no mystery
Even the least of us
Has a beast in us
He said:
I am so ashamed
The money was rolling in
I spent it on every possible sin
When the artists on my label
Would come around
To check on their checks
They’d come on the bus
Or in cars that were wrecks
I owed it
I knowed it
But I didn’t care
I was up cuz they were down
And I was the toast of the town
I said to him:
I am so proud of you
You came from nothing
From burned out shells
Masquerading as houses
You helped to make a home for a new kind of music
Selling twelve inch records out of the trunk of your car
Building the structure that would allow a new universal language to go
Wherever
Your gift has changed the world and may yet save it
Everyone’s got a history
That’s no mystery
Even the least of us
Has a beast in us
I said:
I am so ashamed
Who am I to offer a blessing?
Or to make spiritual pronouncements
Once I was homeless
Living in the bus station
Living in the train station
My station in life was lower than low
Alone in the streets, I was sliding toward a life of crime
Especially around dinnertime
But today when I see a homeless person
I avoid them
When they ask me for something I decline
I’d like to think it’s just my fear of strangers
Which is real
But the truth is something else
I know I may end up back in the streets
And I don’t want to face that
I want to erase that
So when I see the man at the off-ramp with his sign “Hungry veteran, please help”
I, a combat veteran who once was homeless, roll up my window
I want to organize a protest
A protest of my own selfishness
I want to picket my own rented, twice-mortgaged home
I want to start a petition campaign
To demand that me, myself, and I do right
I said:
I am so proud of myself
I have connected music and writing and art
To the struggles of the poor
From here to that hell and back again
I raise money
Gather food
Share my home and my car and my life
And above all
I offer explanations
Explanations of why things are the way they are
And above all
I offer hope of a world that’s different
A hope not based on fairytales
But based on facts and truth and history
I said:
I am proud of all of you for not being ashamed of me
We are all forgiven
We are not the problem
We are all forgiven
We are not to blame
Even the least of us
Has a beast in us
But don’t be too quick to judge us
We are the ones who will change the world
Poem / 2009