Mannerless child!
Shameless child!
Arrogant child!
You lack home training.
Your parents must be bad.

Please don't fault my parents
I was raised well.

I was raised to greet my elders and address them with respect.
Just because I walked pass you at the mall, doesn't mean my parents are to be blamed,
If my parents found out I will be scolded.

I was raised to say "please" whenever I seek for a favour and to say "thank you" as a sign of appreciation,
Just because I didn't utter any,
Doesn't mean my parents lack gratitude,
If my parents found out, they will never gift me.

I was raised to wear decent clothings and be moral in my actions and behaviours,
Just because I wore a skimpy outfit,
Dosent mean my parents bought them,
If my parents found out, they will burn them to ashes.

I was raised to be humble and have patience,
Just because you saw me cursing and fighting on the street,
Doesn't mean my parent encourages it,
If my parents found out I will be grounded.

I was raised to be generous, to love and care without expectations,
Just because I'm indifferent,
Doesn't mean my parents are heartless,
If they found out they will be disappointed.

I was raised to study and be successful in life,
Just because I'm a school drop out,
Doesn't mean my parent never paid my fees,
If they found out they will be angry.

I was raised to always go to church or the mosques,
To visit relatives and friends,
Just because you saw me at the beer palour
Smoking and wasting myself,
Doesn't mean my parents ordained it,
If they found out, the next day might be my funeral.

So please don't fault my parent.
I was raised well.
~boddobodes

---------------------------------

Forty yards from Haribo Heaven,
They took flight,
Mocking the clouds of traffic:
Faster and faster,
Faster and looser,  
Faster and freer.

But then the Saxon ground
Came out in revolt,
Saying
Their covenant with gravity had been violated.

All sound was muted.

Heads struck at thirty-three yards;
Backs cracked the soil at thirty.
In his heart,
It was her finger that he felt,
Arching over the G string of her violin,
Like the neck of a flamingo.  

He mused:
After the sound came back,
Would she play a gigue or a dirge
To accompany
This ignominious moment?

When her sullied, muddied, mossy eyes looked away from him,
To her, had he become a lesser man?

Faster and faster
Faster and looser.

Had she now glimpsed a father’s struggle
To piece together what he thought he knew?

Hello, eyes
You have burned before
Does the glimmer of your gaze know the deep?  

Hello quiet eyes
Reflecting pools of self
Wells of echo and ripple
You, I recognize

Hello tiny door of adoring
You will be my undoing

Welcome, you piercing
promising
open, knowing
eyes.

Every way, each day
I am present to see it.
His miracle of being
I the recipient his gift
Awestruck, humbled, blessed
This I understand completely
Though I know not how, or why
I.  This man I still learn to know
As myself, of my self,
Admit having witness his growing
In great measure do I envy him
See his approach at living, being
embodying the kindest soul,
Naturally thoughtful and caring
How he is, has become
A lesson that I do learn from
My little legacy, so far beyond
better than from which he comes
I worry for him as fathers must
But not of him, of life's unexpected
always haunting every person
just out of foretelling, behind any horizon
For this treasure of my life I know
No doubt, to be a person of light
Wits, genuine smiles, listening and learning
His my Son, He is my Hero
I am out done, and yet,
ever the more thankful.
Blessed by You Zieven Lee.
Thank You.  More than you'll ever know.

Another morning, another day
I wake before the alarm.
The pressures, my stress
deprives me of the rest I need--
just to get through it all.

The rays of the new morning
slowly make their way in
transforming the room from dark to shadows.
I catch a silhouette of you,
lost in your peaceful slumber.
Such a perfect juxtaposition
revealing to me that I have been blessed
through it all.

I remember the young girl
her golden hair, the innocent touch
whose eyes once saw in me--her future.
Though I tried, time and time again
to wreck that dream-- you held on--
through it all.

The scene takes me back, to the expecting mother
so peaceful in her sleep, bravely ready to become
what I so feared I could never be.
While I struggled to become the man, the father,
you needed and deserved me to be.
I knew it would take your love--
to get me through it all.

Now those blessed gifts,
each containing the better parts of both of us
are starting to make their own way
while I'm still stumbling to make my own.
My fears for them collide
with the compiling stress of my day to day
and I find myself again awake before dawn.

On another morning, on another day
with the same silhouette reminding me--
We'll get through it all.

Joey Jones