Free Verse

Boy stood stolid, jaw jutting, fingers fully

Flexed.

Father tearfully, lovingly

gave,

freely,

generously.

But

the boy left and took the cash.

Dancing, girls, dancing girls,

yeah, yeah, yeah,

food and drink and immorality.

But soon

the money had all been spent, gleefully, extravagantly, enthusiastically, unthinkingly, wildly.

Dark, grim, macabre unforgiving famine

Gripped the land by the throat and

Squee-ee-ee-ee-ezed life f

                                                       r

                                                              o

                                                                      m

                                                                                      i

                                                                                           t.

The boy sat

hunched, hungry, hopeless as the hogs

swallowed their swansong swill, swashingly.

Dayight dawned dramatically in his troubled mind;

he recognised the depth of his

great sin, humiliation

and need.

He took a decision, and made a resolution.

It was a revolution, on account of a revelation.

‘I shall go home.

I shall ask to serve.

To serve.

I cannot expect to be treated

as a son

any longer.’

Yet as the boy approached,

       His pa (at Shangri-la)

                Saw him from afar!

                         Ran to him with gifts for

                                  Every part of his boy:

                                             Lips, finger, arms, body,

                                                        Feet, stomach.

                                                                  And heart;

                                                                          Of course, his heart.

‘My son was a fading memory; now he’s a present reality!’