- FROM LEE BALLINGER -

L O V E  A N D  W A R

  • PRAISE

  • SELECTED PIECES

  • BY CHAPTER

  • AUTHOR

  • EXTRAS

  • CONTACT

  • More

    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

    Back to Chapter Page

    CONTACT:  ROCKRAP@AOL.COM

    FREE DOWNLOAD PDF: LOVE AND WAR
    Share

    © 2016 by Lee Ballinger. Website design by David A. Romero.