THe Ballad of the Broken Boy and a Lucky Puppy

I was born in the back of a ’76 Chevrolet, my daddy was drunk and my momma was biting her tongue about my real daddy. The pleather seats were maroon, so they called me red. That was in the wilderness of Felts Woods, back in Carroll County, Va. The game warden was present and that’s why I’m still here, and not marked with a twig and stick grave marker. Shortly after the birth, with my momma stable, in the pickup bed I was placed, tied off on the dog’s collar, that old dog’s leash. Lucky was his name. Me and Lucky Puppy traveled back together, my arms around his leash, her leash around my neck. If Daddy hadn’t been pulled over for drinkin’ and drivin’ then my demise woulda been had, there in the prime, gorgeous nature of toothless ruffians, nameless wanderers and fish that practically 'catched' themselves in the beautiful splendor under the banner of heaven.
Nope, I was yanked up out of that pick up truck, placed in my momma’s lap and instead of a damned nipple of some sort, my daddy placed a harmonica between my toothless gums and my crying, on the bumpy road home, I played the saddest song, but love smudged my tune, even Lucky Puppy sang along, bouncing along in the back with out the company of the discharge of my devious soul.
Back home, home is where I found myself to be, wicked on all fours, courageous in discovering nature, saying hi to the animals, being beaten by muddy neighbors, cursed by drunken lustful whores that scathed the country side with their muddy heels and their beer stained halter tops, I paraded my ineducation while I munched on crab apples and shot my BB guns at cows and dogs named Duke. When I wasn’t being a careless urchin between imagination and landscape, I was covered in poison ivy vines and my mascara made of dirt was being made into mud by my tears of woeful torment. I’d climb trees like a feral child escaping his assailers, I’d screech and holler as my brothers of blood stalked me with a lust for my pain and my tragedy at their finger tips.
A wild child by accident, I roamed with potato chips in my back pack and a dull blade in my front pocket, inhabiting empty houses and churches, starting fires on purpose and by accident, I lost my individuality to the scorching torment of dirty knees, a dead god and a family that forgot his name in place of Lucky Puppy.
Dignity was a shallow pain that buried itself into my frontal lobe like the ‘chinky pins’ that I used to pick from the trees to feed my mouth and my imagination.
Lucky Puppy was the first to run away from home, each morning on my daily round up and choke chain trail of tears on my way to school, we’d pass this dog with a three legged skip on it’s way to a faraway lands and happiness that only dogs that skip can dream of, we’d pick her up, force her back into the caravan and turn around, only to drive her back to the land of the land of madness, free meals, free pain and all the land you can cry on. Only lucky puppy could figure her way out of anywhere, she used her Beagle sense of smell to find her way back to the emotional concentration camp, my tear stained eyes always forced me to sit in the middle of an untouched wilderness until my eyes were to dry to cry anymore, then I’d have to wade through briars to find my way home.
Looking Back now, I find that Im damned with the recollection or memory that I thought I blacked out during High School. The Hair in my eyes, the trench coat that kept my knees company, the cigarettes that kept me quiet, the friends that I had made to make me feel normal, the personality I’d developed, The beautifully rotten life that made so much sense to misery and none to me, and I just went a long with it. The cuts and tears with my artistic silent rants in my skin with knives and push pins, the sad bastard music that kept me company and the blue skinned fiends that knew every one of my secrets, my friends—Fuck, each and every one of them is gone and long gone- faraway in the silent graveyard of Sheol. Past. Present. Love. Happiness. The Present. Life. The pushover that sucks your soul out and leaves you alive and hollow, nothing to speak of- No one to talk to. The memories that rape your soul and eject your willful power to over come the notches you’ve carved on your spiritual belt. The side you allow others to see, is a broken serpent of a lost relic that coils in fear anger and despair, lashes out and is a ruiner of progress.
I am but a broke down poet, with only past recollections to show the crossers of our paths. I stagger like a stranger through a dust bowl town, memories seem to mean too much to me and I mean too little to friends, for now I’ll just bow my cap and trudge on through the lost infidelity of self demoralization.
I’m still alive. Proud I am not, but curious why. There is a spiritual wind that sweeps away ones questions once they’re asked. If they’re answered or not, is not up to me, perhaps they are the answers on your tombstone.
I care, I think, I wonder, I’m misunderstood, I put too much emphasis on reality and push too much on the unexplained explaining the unexplainable.
I know I’ll never know and I’ll never be able to extinguish the burning question of WHAT THE FUCK. . . . it hurts, and it’s bothersome, but then again, what aspect of life is not?
‘Round about the time I retired from the trees of a hapless monkey, a preacher ran over Lucky Puppy, though she was no longer the puppy that raised me -- I’d grown to be a young man, and she’d grown to be an old woman, though she no longer attempted to escape the thorny premises, she stood by me loyal and care free, unafraid of my lost child hood lacerations and completely enamored by our orphaned accomplishments, the thunder carried over her last rites, the preacher said not a word, to her or us.
With a busted gut and a gun to her head, She howled and moaned, crying to God and man.
And with a tearless sigh, I accepted the facts of life. The ruiner of reality is reality itself. All that is imaginable is able to be shot down, that which is unimaginable, is most likely at your karmic doorstep.
Life is a broken weave of stories, knitted only by regret, torment, memories and hate and painful love.
Fuck Christ, Goddamnit do I love Life, even though It’s a mother fucker.
I sure Hope once I arrive, God doesn’t mind the pranks I’ll play on him.
(1:28 am Jan 27)