soldiering on, boys
follow a man’s trail
buckskin or bombs
they float in their minds
wanting nothing more than
wood and tools, land to grow
yet we call them combatants
until a father is like an onion
peeled, the bastard son
of Adam, when Eve
was told she held humanity
with the snake
oh the apple, the price
of knowledge, she calls
out, smarter than man
yet they dive bomb
kamikaze entire nations
might makes men
young men like ants held in sun
attention, sir, yes, sir
each foot forward for
another soldier burnished
some all it comes to is toxic
masculinity, testosterone machismo
so many fatherless fathers
seeking some hand up
lessons from both man
woman, a balance yammered
about on and on
yet reality is the hard blade
of men wrapping women
in burqas and bonnets
bodices and bodysuits
it’s a man’s world
yet . . . so many flail
nanny state is not a female
construct yet boys-to-men
all they ever see are women
early in life, from day cares
to science rooms, so where
are those grand Adams
those amazing role models
male mentors for fatherless
boys, girls?
they have danced too often
with the mind melding power
of money and military
aggression and atomization
call of duty is lone wolf
or pack of dogs
all bundled up in scholarly
sexism or basic bestial
rage, until mother turns
into war-football-pounding heads
fan, now the mixed martial arts
the pinnacle for fatherless
boys, girls, a show of force
yet to be father
or man is to hold
land sacred, see
streams for abundance
lift young, old, frail
see a vision of age
on land, holding harvests
reading Aesop, making
fables for futures
there, with both
with girl, man and woman
hand in hand, separated
from the disease of capitalism
barbarism of religion
finding earth, water, moon
the mother of all things
even the fathers
