ON BEING KINGS OF LEON
Here’s
what no one says:
It’s
hard to be a man these days;
Probably
harder not to be,
To
be some other identity,
But
that’s their story, and good luck
To
them, but if we’re about saying
Truths,
then this is one, just the same:
When
I was born I was slapped
With
a father’s name,
But
no fathering came to me.
At
least none I could see.
The
car I could have driven
Remained
locked; the golf course
I
might have mastered with a steadying
Grip
is wintering under ignorance.
I
barely know how to drink.
Watching
the new Kings of Leon
Video,
shot to look resonant of
An
age when black and white imagery
Was
meaningful, it is hurtful
To
sense how little these four white
Men
have left, apparently more sober now,
About
their business with a parental sense
Something
else is more valuable
Than
backstage rotgut and upfront groupies.
Maybe.
I see men sweating, ageing, growing beards
And
bellies, the look of the lockdown,
Not
men about town, men whose prowling
Days
if not done were curbed by present
Dangers
and concerns
That
turned the light back on them
As
the cause of the accident –
You
can’t stroll by as bystander
When
your grandpappy raised
The
rope up into the strong man-bearing tree.
Why
does nature not break to hold
The
flailing man whose breath gives out?
Why
does the sea not shout, then sink,
All
naval and affiliated vessels, think,
That
bear that bore, souls, bound for, what?
America:
home of rock and roll, the South,
A
division line like a sneer;
An
ignorance thick as a hungover head;
The
grease fat slides, the statues tremble, not
All
of them teeter, most remain steady as they go.
No
complaint from this quarter; apolitical
Style
is both preservation and blinkered,
But
horses do well sometimes unable to know
All
that is around, all that surrounds is daunting.
Some
days you get up, don’t shave, avoid
Any
mirror for shame, pour that early bird
Wild
Turkey, and appreciate bourbon is God
In
liquid form, providing grace.
It’s
difficult to be a man with accidents,
Fears,
duties, and an abundance of cop cautions;
It
can be ironic to say so, it can be also true.
To
shoulder the entirety of evil as it has flowed
Out
of Eden up to the door of the lesser times;
To
walk in skinny jeans, with a pistol and a limp
In
intriguing historic shadows across a stage,
Handsome
in rotten decline, vile as corruption set in
On
a magnolia tree or in an orange grove, or when
The
boll weevil escapades throughout the cotton.
The
men who voted, lifted an instrument to kill
Or
play, who held their women at the summer balls,
Who
screwed Jesus to the wall in the back of a Dodge,
Challengers
of charm, hate, we love the aftershave
After-radiation
of their culture, their beatings,
The
bruises make up our sense of place, our beauties.
I’d
die to have you down for a word against my old man
Who
threw a punch in his dotage too in pandemonium,
Dustups
in brothels, fisticuffs in breweries, romanticised,
But
it was the other guy hit the sawdust floor, who died.
It
was the other family who cried in a ravaged mirror,
It
was us looking at what being white looks like from here.
It
looks murky, indignantly blurred, unable to catch a wink
From
a snarl, hard to tell if this is sepia or dried rust or blood,
Hard
to see what all the fuss was about trying to look good
When
we can see right through our estranged visages
Way
back to the tobacco, chokeholds, manacles, short-gauges.
It
can be true, two things held at once, in the same mind –
The
animal can be seriously fucked and when docile, kind –
The
civil gent who doffs his gentility to the fine ladies,
Was
also your self that night in the alley, kicking shit
Out
of god knows what sort of pecker fuck-whit who got
In
the path of your holy intention to meander home pissed,
Safe
as a swan among his royal glide, brimmed with pride,
Because
to be a troubled white man is also a high ride,
Sense
of the focus of all art since Oedipus Rex took a wrecking
Bar
to balling bad manners in the master bedrooms of sex.
It’s
been laser direct, down through the narratives, rhyme,
And
now, relinquish bastards of repute, we salute, but step down,
It’s
more than past colloquial and official closing time, accept
The Shane saddle slump, ride into the sunset of earned defeat –
Even that privilege you keep, to be the cool dying hero gone,
Or
should your heads meet conscious dawn alone, still blind?
March
5, 2021
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