Part III / VIII
The Prodigal Songbird
Paschal Wilson
I was always one of one,
Always above the one I was,
One of summer’s humming bugs,
One kiss from the Sun.
Fun in the Sun is what I want, I want the beach I see.
The Sun is fun when gloves are gone,
What I call you and me.
I want the beach I think I want but I don’t really know.
The beach I see is really all the beaches long ago.
Life is like a box a lot,
Box of summer days,
Life is awful, life is hot,
Sweet hot baby rays.
I see the Sun, you see the Sun, so we’re both in a world.
You see a glove, I see the fun of being little girls.
I am the man I said I am,
The man I said I was.
I said I am the man I am;
I am the man I was.
This will be my summer song,
Be my summer dance.
Summer song, you’re all day long,
Be my hearts and hands.
If I die before I rise, I pray my son to fall beside.
Before I rise, I pay my ties,
I pray my disco ball retires.
My son to fall, my disco ball,
My baby in the sky, I pray
I make you smile for miles,
You smile from eye to eye.
The son I am is understand
By one, the son I bastard,
The Sun is still the Sun
All through the night and morning laughter,
See Faith is such a funny thing,
The Sun is such a sunny ring,
I take my potted gold plate baby to the shadows
I keep going backwards,
My feet before my back burns,
The beach under my half turns,
Greets me with the sweet relief of my feet from the heat of a
diseased piece of my desert pleadings, believing I’m still seeing
anything but complete demons.
I keep leaving a sweet evening to keep seeking a free weekend
between Edom E. and what you’d pay to believe in.
I spent 100 sundays bent on my knees begging for peace ,
But the Sun does what the Sun beams necessary,
And the Sun sees the Son as a threat to hereditary.
The son I am is fair in hand and come whatever after,
The son I understand is gone and red from what I said and
practice.
I am the Sun I said I am,
The Sun I said I was.
I said I am Sun;
The man I understand is bastard.
The World is such a naughty girl, she takes me all the day,
I caught the World in bed with summer suns from far away,
I beat my World with glove and pearl, and I ran into the Sun
The Sun of one of many worlds of one of many suns
I look for Sun, my Sun, the Sun, as I hide from the World
The Sun of many suns is hard to see as boisterous little girls
So I grow up quick, vacation ends, and I learn how to squint
I spot the Sun,
The one of one,
The Son of man I’ve taken from,
My bastard’s fingerprints have won.
None other than the Son I hunt,
The Son of Sun,
The Son of Man,
The Son I am is far too tan,
The Son I am is still the Son of Paschal.
So I surrender to the Sun,
Come on, show me how it’s done.
A red old man can learn to dance,
With brand new shoes and brand new pants
When baby ghosts inherit hands,
And baby boy supplies the ants,
To bug me into spins and chants,
Above the man I said I am,
The Sun, The Son, The One, The Hand,
I pray my gloves can hear the marching band.
My Son in Sun may love before or love me after,
But for now my sunny son remains a fleeting past word,
What have I done, my sunny son,
my son in sunny pastures,
Where can I find my sunny son?
My Son of Sunrise after.
Summer days are fun this way,
I see the Sun from far away,
I don’t remember how to take the gloves off.
But then my son comes running home from school or jail or work or
tomb, I guess I’ll always run if I run backwards.
The Sun, it burns my gloves for love;
The Sun is fair, the Sun is young;
The Sun is burning everything I see now;
The Sun is burning me so bright;
The Sun is burning my whole life;
Burning Burning all my nights;
I never cry,
I never grieve,
Because The Sun and Me Have
Joint Custody of the hands
beneath
My Teeth.
It’s funny how the world, the foul,
Makes baby boy a naughty sound,
I said it is your birthday now,
My candle won’t blow out.
A price to pay for summer days,
A new vocation of the rays,
I’m too afraid to face decay of winter.
Summer is what summer says,
I spent my summer more or less,
Pretending not to hear the mourning after.
I am still young,
I can only count to one hundred and one,
One hundred and two,
Just for you.
You can fly before you die,
One hundred and three dollar flights,
Staring at the sky, Never quite getting down,
James Brown,
Never quite taking off,
Never quite sure why,
I’m pretty fly for a guy-colored-guy
I don’t see fun in numbers beyond sum,
One hundred and two, One hundred and one.
One hundred and you is two,
You say million,
A hundred and a million, A million and a hundred,
It may be two,
But who is who,
When you is stripped and plundered?
A hundred thousand, A hundred million, A hundred million billion xillion,
Hundred, hundred, hundred, hundred,
A hundred is chameleon,
A hundred one,
A hundred two,
A hundred is civilian.
A hundred weeks, A hundred stories,
A hundred birthday cakes,
A hundred nurses all line up,
Cause daddy’s got the shakes.
Shakey baby, Milky shakey,
Daddy’s gone away,
A hundred reasons not to love him,
But Sonny’s gonna stay.
Daddy’s tall but
Daddies fall,
And Sonny pays the price.
Sonny in the Summer Sun,
Never knowing night.
I can string together
A bullshit sweater
That brings us all together,
Four words red letter,
A glove is a fetter
A glove is not so bad
When the Sun is on your ass,
Because a summer son you made a bastard.
I bid my gloveless kin adieu,
A gloveless me is loveless you,
I swear I’ll never glove another after
I sing my hymns of shirts and skins,
My son has turned his weeping into prayers
that I stop calling him a bad word.
The Sun is rum,
When son is gone,
But Son of Son was Son of Sun,
And Sun’s red Son is Sun the way One Hundred One is One because,
Does A Hundred come before or after?
My Son the Sun is One of One,
My Son will be the burning gun,
I am the Son I made when once my Son I made the Sun.
I was always one of three,
The Son of Son of Son of thee,
My father’s name was Easter and
His father’s name was Easter E. and
I have gone by Easter three,
But my Son is The Sun.
If Easter One is long begone,
And Easter Two is to become,
And Easter Three has bastard Son, That bastard is the Sun.
So every night I say my prayer,
My Sun will rise into the air,
And every mourning dawn I stare,
Into my heir’s ascension.
I am not a man with any room for rhyme or reason,
Before my bastard Son was called the Sun, I called him bits and pieces.
The Son I call the Sun
Is one I took from everyone,
I bound him in his innocence,
And still he paid the judge.
For custody,
My son, you see,
He saw me in a different sea,
Where hands are red,
But gloves are shed,
Revealing back my Son to me.
My Son has long been painted red,
To fit back in with Daddy’s old inheritance,
But now my son has nowhere left to bleed from.
My son is such a funny one,
He says he’ll see the day become,
When darkness runs from summer suns,
Of red and gold and black burns.
My son he prays
For me he says:
“Everyone’s a little red,
Everyone’s a little scared, and
Everyone’s a little bastard”
My white bright painted Son is red,
He says to follow him instead,
He says that when I lay my head,
Father Son stand hand in hand.
Brighter than a man can stand.
My red inheritance is now read backwards.
My son, he gives me what I want:
The air, the deer, the tractors.
My son is brilliant like the Sun,
Except he shines a little faster.
My son, he says the damndest things,
My son, he says his name is spring bird.
I don’t argue with my preacher,
I must spring a wing and sing,
My son has made a fool of me,
He changes fate by changing names,
So I may be the man from whom he came.
I am the man my son might love,
The man I said I was is gone.
I said I am the man I am; The man of none too many suns.