—I am tired. My heart is sick & sad. From where the sun now stands in the
sky, I will fight no more forever… Chief Joseph–Nez Perce
standing just out of range of a street lamp
i watch the shadows of tree branches
move along the empty avenue
almost every night
i come to stare at this vacant lot
the spot
where the lighthouse baptist church once stood
i open the back door to my mind
& dream-walk through the wreckage
scattered
across the floor of my memory
one drunken saturday night in 1985
my father
lonely for god
broke into the little wooden sanctuary
& doused the whole place
with gasoline
then he took a seat
in the front pew
lit a lucky strike
& burnt the son-of-a-bitch
down around his ears
the last “zippo party”
i don’t know
when my father’s heart
turned as black
as a piece of granite
from that sad “wall”
but most of his last days
were used up in a rage
when the whiskey was talking
the old man raved about
“search & destroy” patrols
wiping out entire vietnamese villages–
when there was no one left to waste
the cigarette lighters were thumbed open
& everything standing
was burnt to the ground
“zippo party”
a few more ‘dink’ hearts & minds pacified
there was a time
when i believed
my father was a hero
there was a time
when i believed
in simple right & wrong
there was a time
when i believed
in america
there was a time
when i believed
in all of the “necessary illusions”
enough to put my soul on the line
enough to go out
& confront things
i did not understand
another war
tied to another lie
bent under the weight of things
that can never be set right
i slide a shaky right hand
inside my jacket pocket
& retrieve a half-pint of i.w. harper
i raise a toast
to the lighthouse baptist church
a cold breeze sends
dead leaves skittering
along the gutter
i stare up the street
to where the white lines
are swallowed by the darkness
“vanishing point”
somewhere a lost dog howls
i step from the curb
a windblown bird
into the crazy night