Broken man prayers
Broken man prayers
A Poem by Coyote Poetry
We pay for every sin my friend. Walk softly through life. Real and solid things come to us rarely.
Broken man prayers
Happy hour had passed. Last call was whispered by the kind bartender.
Her kind and sad eyes told me. She knew I had no place to go. She had no words
for a dead man walking.
Old men smoke and drink.
Become colder and older.
Old Poet don’t write sober poetry no-more.
Drunk and disappointed poetry.
Allowed the Poet to create.
Old man sister cried, dear mother tried to find the boy who held dreams.
Now all the broken man had is.
Is a broken man prayers.
Last call, first call.
No angels in the dark taverns.
Just pretenders.
Trying to find hope in the bottle of the good whiskey.
Burning desires, burning emotion.
Dead and gone.
Drunk men wisdom catches up.
He remembered a beautiful face crying in the slow rain of a cold December day in 1992.
Telling the Soldier. “Please stay with me my love.”
War, whiskey and the damn 3,000 miles.
He knew as soon as he headed west.
They would be no-way back.
He held his good friend Jack.
Held the whiskey tightly in his hands.
He told the pretty bartender. “Here is my best tip for you.
A gift of a drunk Poet words and prayers.
“My lover, my killer.
I lost you in the lost and found.
I can’t find the way back my kind lover.
You made me live once and we made love till the morning lights.
I was going to be Hemingway and you were to create art and beauty.
I didn’t know.
You can’t go back. I learn too late.
Lovers hold on forever. Not allowing anyone or anything to separate them.
I don’t seek to find you. I know you can’t rebirth what is dead and buried.
I have found the dead-end road.”
The kind bartender tapped his hand gently and told him. Go home my friend.
No forgiveness in the dark bar. Just people seeking things that can’t be found.
Today the bad days, good days are the same.
I sit by pier where Hemingway stood once.
I wonder is there peace for a man who wanted to see and touch everything?
Maybe Hemingway found the answer?
Coyote
I must ditto the haunting comments. Very much so – I see alcohol in a way that is in no way poetic in any sense of the imagination – but this piece opened my eyes a little.
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I watched brothers and father die from alcohol abuse. It is a bad death. Thank you for reading and the comment.
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I watched my father…. you are welcome.
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This piece is so haunting. Great work, John!
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Haunting. Thank you Susan x
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Thank you for reading and the comment. Just old thoughts. Old poetry are good memories to remind us what we once was.
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It’s strange how old thoughts can be so vibrant in our memory, even the horrifying ones. It still takes art to put those thoughts into verse.
Thanks for replying John, Much appreciated.
Blessings, Susan x
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