Old Dog Again

Once he told me of his grandfather,

a victim of the days when intellect was hidden sometimes,

by masks and pointy caps and shotguns.

and there they marched behind the blinds,

with windows closed, covered and exposed,

lost out in the woods, with leaves hanging from the trees,

all fallen in the fall, and in the winter left to freeze,

something discarded and forgotten, way out in the breeze,

decaying and swaying, a forest in the seas.

all of the confusion of war and loss and hate

passed down by faith and famine and fate,

some pathetic mixture of culture and genetics,

a symptom of politics and phonetics,

we're all so lost and following all we've found

and his ol' grandfather's dog followed him all over town.

granddaddy told me of his grandfather's dog,

following him in his sheets and all the fog,

in everything he tried to conceal,

in everything that was violent and real,

in all of the days and the choices of all the seasons,

sometimes those without a voice are the voice of reason...