turbid trellis
For why I was placed on this earth, I give no reason
For what I do with that life I care not, but do what I will
I am my family’s folklorist, my town’s nobody,
The antiquarian who cares naught for their earth,
I am all the above, and yet more,
I solve the puzzles that resolve differently,
I make songs and stories that drift wantonly,
Your life is fickle and brittle, cherish it willingly,
Gather the eccentricities and electric doings,
Of friends and loved ones, I do not care,
Your life yours.
I gather the father’s talk, his common gripes,
The songs he likes, those old mannerisms,
I gather the mother’s lack, her motherly knack,
Yet don’t seek her past so clearly,
The mysteries of the stories unknown
Producer of tall tales I am, storyteller anew,
Breaking spittle at common tunes and chuckle
For my own are never as well tuned
A blueprint misused, breathes into our necks,
The old known loves are neglected, with rhyme
And reason thrown away, thrown away to no return
But I use no stick, no mental charades, I run
My mouth with no backtrack lightly running,
No mindmaps, meanings, key words, nor more
The way a man pats your hand as he speaks,
How he touches before you’re gone,
Has spread to his youth and theirs,
Giving culture from where there weren’t
That I wish to collect, the father’s, the mother’s,
The family’s folklore.