Quod Vide, My Child

Q.V. My Child…Q.V.
On this matter go see
For yourself.
Experience was never gained
From staring at books
That sit unopened upon 
Some other person's shelf.
Why should I insist that the
Substance of my heart is pure?
Why should I write you a letter
When you label my concern 
Nothing but an artful lure?
You can bore yourself as 
Easily as I can send you to sleep.
You can make yourself smile
You  can make yourself weep.

You do not need me around
To hold up and compare
Yourself to: 
You will only insist 
On finding me lacking if you do,
And if you judge my days
More fairly, you will come
For me screaming unstable 
Accusations against me, 
Using my alleged failures  
To excuse your current insanity.
Enough of this bullshit,
Of this fatal dance between
What was and what could be.
I am no excuse for your 
Struggle or ineptitude.
I saw you born
I soothed your neonate cries
I watched you age from 
The first bloom of youth
To a dried out dusty and dire
Desperate early decrepitude.

Watch yourself go from blood
To dust: the bit in-between
Is no more than fumes and fuss.

Go see for yourself! See if I care
See if I fret and worry about the
Quality of a woman’s hair spread
Out upon a frozen lake
While the car you upturned
Sinks to its ultimate fate.
See if I care about the books and the gin
See if I care about the absinthe and the sin.
You did everything I warned you against, 
So go see if I care when
Mermaid fancies drag 
You deep under their waves
To gasp for mercy at their
Particular whims.
You will not use me as a shim
For your crooked table life!
Go see for yourself
The piss and shit and juice 
And how it flows through
And in and about and without
You whatever you do, anyway
The knife still turns in the lock
The key's still lost in the hay.

You can’t stop the tide from turning
You can't stop my dreams from burning
You can’t halt the night or bring on
The day or make me love you again
In my own tired shattered way. 

All those meals you forgot to eat?
You chowed down on anger
And used resentment for meat. 

Go see for yourself!
Read in between these broken lines:
Take that dusty death-tome from my 
Shelf and walk it along your own
Ley lines.
Mark your sin.
Scar your soul.
Go fall into someone
Else’s brittle black hole soul.
See if I care!
I cannot do it for you and
Take the pain.
The memory of the torment
Has never ceased to grow
Or waned with the handles 
Of the years: I still shed
Those secret desperate tears.
No!
I cannot let you borrow my
Failures, they are not mine to give
My second-hand shabby shame
Is my own disaster-draught to taste.
I had a life and you laid it
Brutally down to waste.
Q.V. my child, where ever you are
Go ahead be your own shooting star,

We are our own curators
Our own legend makers
We create ourselves
Out of the materials 
Around us.
Dark and light
Mundane and faulty.
We move towards the darkness
And lean light-wards slowly.

That friend you say you
Have doubts about
That is a blast to be with
And knows how to twist
And shout….

I have seen the devil
And that is not him -
He moves too lightly
And yes he is bright, yet
Burns too dim to be that
Brand of ultimate evil:
His flowers are destructive
Yet shine upon the easel. 

My motherly advice is
Necessarily rudimentary:
Look before you leap,
Feel before you judge,
Don’t ask any man to 
Do what you have not pushed
And failed to shove. 

And above all go see for yourself
Don’t believe what you are told. 
Don’t sign up for any one else's
Agenda, obsession or grudge.
And look at your cards carefully
Before you crumble and fold.
A chance not taken is only
Future resentment to hold.
And even if you suspect your
Failures will leave others
Shattered and broken and torn,
Even if your losses are pegged
Out for all to see blowing
Gently with the clothes 
Strung out between two trees
Waving proudly on the front lawn,
Carry on, my child, carry on.
Your faults are yours only.
Your failures belong to you:
We killed off Christ years ago
For all the good that it did do!

We are all just ghosts of joy and horror
Looking to reach a final solid form,
Being tossed by infinite waves 
And washed up in the daily storms. 
We are all wanderers of the endless desert
Then become boats upon the lake.
I tried not to be a phony
I tried not to be a fake
So I will tell you this
Truth I jealously guarded:
The well-spring shared
Means less for me
And more for you
But share you must
To win when all is turned 
To ashes and to smut.
To win alone is nothing
There is always someone
Else to get to know and love. 

So, go see for yourself
See if I care.
Make your mistakes
Go walk into those
Dank and spidery lairs. 
Take the wrong turn
Get born, get raised
Go out there get high
Get laid…
And get lost upon
The storm
And if your boat doesn't
Make the morn
See how much I care. 
I feel as if I am being strangled
By a single solitary hair.

I am not responsible 
For what you will see
When you move towards
Freedom
And away from the safety
Of me.

Don't take the pages
Of my life as proof
Enough in itself.
Go see
Quod Vide
I am tired but still 
There is more that
I am forced to be.

I have seen the sun set
And all the filtered light 
Tumble out of grace
As I sit under
This diseased and dying 
Barebacked City tree
Trying to reconcile the fruits
Of curiosity with the reality
Of me.