۞ ۞ ۞
My life is a barren field.
I begin again.
This is the way,
I am the Phoenix.
Jake was my uncle
a Texan, who drank to drown his sorrow.
When he was younger
he thought he had what we wanted, Jessie
his wife, his high school sweetheart.
It was a desperate love.
She was unfaithful, but so was he.
Jacob was no saint
but there is a rule in Texas for women
and one for men
that it ain’t right nor fair
just ain’t germane.
He killer her lover on a full moon night
coming home from a three day drunk.
Caught them in bed together.
Killed him with his hands.
His best friend.
He served his time, seven years.
Jessie was long since gone
His children to
Scattered to the winds
He returned to the oil field
Late nights, slamming quarter inch pipe
down deeper and deeper holes
to the bowels of the earth
They said of Jake
he could do more work drunk
than two men sober.
He took more wives
but it came to nothing.
Always his sorrow, his secret grief.
Living in cheap motels
stinking of cigarettes and stale beer
he worked less, drank more.
Always a bar stool for Jacob.
He died drunk in Dubai
rolled his truck down a mountain of sand
I was with him once, asleep at the wheel
When the wind moves the sand.
it sings his story
it howls in the wind.
Jacob’s Lament
I am Jacob
I have grown so weary.
Life is a barren field
and I am hungry.
I sew the seed by hand
I water it with blood
still nothing grows.
Shall I live to see the rain
and if I did
who would I tell.
I am the dust.
Will I ever be at peace
until death,
Or even then?
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