Now and Then: A Ballad of What Brothers Became

A Ballad of What Brothers Became

The rainwater fills the coffee can
But they say not to drink it anymore
My eyes hang a moment on the tree line
A moment till to flight takes the raptor

And my lover
She sits expressionless
I guess this is how it’s put to rest
We just linger
With the ghosts of absent sounds
No pitter-patter in the halls
The kitchen table has no laughter
On the hilltop ’s a pile of stones
The rifle leans by the bed hereafter

She kisses my forehead…
But not a word is said
She goes in for the night…
I look on as the sunsets
My mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

The stillness of morning has set me
For a moment aside from myself
But his laughter surfaces in memory
Before the hilltop, my eyes begin to well

The flesh of my flesh
Before mine’s come to rest
Plucked from his mother’s swollen breast
My own brother
What has the bottle done to you?
By casualty of culmination
Or error more random in cause
Fate embittered raised your hand
Your infant nephew was the loss

My palms to my forehead…
My fingers claw my scalp
Over and over again…
The memory, it plays out
But my mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

Six wishes a devil would sell me
And that devil’s the want deep in my heart
Six wishes of lead slowly loading
As I sit in the corner in the dark
Then I rise from my chair with a decision
And I creep outside like a phantom
Leaves scurry in a frail wind of protest
But such weight can’t be lifted with bantams

Closing the truck door behind me
It cast a shadow, like a dragon’s wing
Flapping in the cool hunter’s moonlight
The heavy motions of a dying thing
And the headlights throw their beams on the front porch
Like twin specters standing at the door
But, in their light, now the house looks abandoned
As does everything that they lead me before
Down the long winding road to retribution
Down the long winding road to justice
Down the long winding road to damnation
The further down I drive, the greater the darkness

Crossing the James River, I hear thunder
Now the moon hides in a forest of clouds
The rain begins to fall on my windshield
By the time I cross, its pouring hammers down

To his motel room
Yes, I know my brother’s den
Where many times I had found him
Down in the bottle
With old pictures of us three
“Y’took ‘er from me” he would slur
“The only joy I’d in the world”
Then he’d curse me and then he’d curse God
And then he’d curse the devil in his heart

The door was half-open…
He was waiting for me to come
There was nothing left to say…
I lifted my brother’s gun
My mother’s dying words…

“Child, he’s family
He’s your brother
Don’t forget”

The cotton hangs soaked on the dark stems
And reminds me of late last winter
Will I ever find my way out of Smithville?
I can’t be found on this side of the river

And the revolver
Rides shotgun next to me
My dearest devil, comforting
Me with the promise
That my secrets safe with he
As the Chevy slices the flooded road
Rising up over the white fence posts
And the more I see the cotton soaked
The more it looks a field of ghosts

Indian bones in the riverbank…
My mattock is stained with snake’s blood
I burry this devil in the corn field…
But I cannot bury… the deed we’d done

I fall down in the cane…
Like Cain, I hang my head
The blood upon my hands…
The blood my brother bled
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words
My mother’s dying words…




December 13, 2006