Prisoner
Billy Grinstead


Raising Cain


Son of god
Bad son, and mad
For all these years

Heard about the good son
Who never sinned
Never wavered

Except for that tiny expression of doubt
At the very last and
Easily forgiven

Bad son fears everything
Darkness, the spotlight, his own ugly
Face in the mirror

His way is the easy way
Has to slap himself silly for a
Shred of nobility

Oh, he knows who he is
What he is, but growing tired of the
Public dissection

Must have been some confusion in the lab
Incorrect infusion in the lab
Similarities in the good and the bad

Because bad son has aspirations
Of greatness, decency, of being,
Say it, savior

Oh my god, stereotypical laughter
Through the tears, the silly fool
Has forgotten his place

Trembling, small hearted man
Feels the sad, haunting glance
Of the father





That exposes wonder at what went wrong
With experiment gone awry, so unlike
Jehovah and his Job

That strong man undaunted by adversity,
Cruel adversity, while boy succumbs
To nothing more than loneliness

And worse still pretends, continues to pretend
With vivid imagination, supporting machination
At meaningful quest
Ill suited, of course, to lead by example
He grasps as do all carcasses of emptiness
At all he has left

Hoping pretty words will expose the truth
Hiding to prevent listeners from being dissuaded
By shabby insipid aberration

This has the feel of failure
Didn't change the hearts of men but then
The good son didn't either

Ah, was it self imposed
All the years of laughable delusion
Of ego sated infirmity

Have others shrugged at the oppressive weight
Or simply bore the burden and not
Rushed blindly into insanity

But what was I supposed to think?
Is it not fatherly, the inexorable
The loving disdain


Courage for Cain


Classic car up on blocks
Rusting in the yard
Of weeds and dirt and tiny spots of grass
Dalmatian from the jail
Across the way
Stopped by to bite my yellow cat in half
But Jimmy Johnson liked me

Couldn't cross the street
Scary boys my brothers' ages
Paroled the dingy, dirty duplex
With rocks and sticks
They'd send you back
Teary eyed and shamefaced
But Jimmy Johnson liked me

Up the street
And on the other corner
In a house that wasn't old and dirty
Jimmy had a shiny closed in porch
Eleven toys, a radio, a sandbox
So if I ventured, that's where I ventured
Cause Jimmy Johnson liked me

My mother always told me
In Danny's better house next door
The lady kept it spotless, made us play outside
But mom said we still had fun
Walking, running up and down
Our safe side of the block
But I don't remember fun or Danny

By the time that I remember
I was afraid of everything
Like dogs and harboring any feelings
And probably would never
Have left the dirty yard again
Would never have considered other possibilities

If Jimmy Johnson hadn't liked me

The Socialization of Cain


Six of us on the bed
Slumbering in a circle
It's late
Two older brothers and their friends
A baby boy and me
They told stories of the world outside
With waterfalls and cigarettes
Monsters and dangerous men
Who could climb the walls
Of this old two story house
You had to listen for the scratching

Never lighted but never dark
In the glow of tales and laughter
And I never slept
Self appointed sentry
Listened for the sounds of danger
Long after the dying of the patter

Those boys were brave
Went off each day
To a strange world they could handle
Found things to want
To shoulder up to, to smile at
And report
Lying in the bed those nights
I could imagine their world
That someday I would venture out
And discover what made them giggle

I didn't
And though I've looked
Felt warmth alone, lying by a river in the sun
Roamed the streets in my car at night
Enraptured at what these human beings have done
I've never felt the tickle
Again, of bubbly laughter
Never found another circle