my dad

[revolutionR]

I could have lived in my dad's world
my dad was like a TV show
I watched the show and I thought
I knew what it was about
but then it just kinda was over
by the time I was a teenager
my dad seemed like a character
in a movie, I knew he went to work
but I did not know anything else
he never talked about himself
never told me anything about his life
growing up, or very little, I knew
he went to his Aunt's house in the summer
and that he went fishing, but there was
a lot of blank spots, it was like something
happened that he did not want to talk about
my dad was nice to me, but he was like
a distant stranger, I began drinking
a lot at about fifteen, my dad did not
relate to me, he would slap me
sometimes if I came home drunk
but he still did not talk to me
or if he did I can't remember
anything he said, then I heard
Bob Dylan on the radio
and I did not care anymore

I could have lived in my dad's world
but he seemed like a one dimensional man
going to his factory job, smoking his cigarettes
my mother being a house wife, did not know
I was an only child, I lived in a house
until I was twelve, but then we moved into
an apartment, my dad bought a stereo
and he had a few jazz records
so I think he hung out as a young man
in clubs and drank and listened to jazz
he told me once that he beat some people up
but I think maybe some people beat him up
I found out from my mother many years later
that my dad was rejected by some woman
and so he married my mom

my dad did not know that I started taking drugs
when I was about seventeen, I would come home
on LSD and try to talk to him, while tripping
on his face, he had no idea what I was doing
or what I was going through in high school
he went to his aircraft factory job
and had a little sports car, and he smoked
once when I was fifteen he had to come and get
me out of jail late at night, because I had
been arrested for being drunk
on the way home I tried to get his attention
while he drove and smoked another cigarette
no dice, his mind was some where else
maybe in that Wisconsin summer
fishing in the lake near this Aunt's house
I will never know, because he did not talk about it
so I did not live in my dad's world
and it was the late sixties
Bob Dylan was on the radio
poetry was in the air
so I did not care

[mnaz]

That was the Century of Disconnect, though weirdly starting to be connected. I don't think I ever really knew my dad either. I don't blame him. Or me. It was something to receive with a level of gratitude, and then head out, part ways..