Are you my son, my little boy?
You visit me within a dream;
they tell me I should fight again,
but then I wake, and scream.
The hopelessness of fighting lies,
all lost for weapons sharp to bite
in courts that care for nothing else
but gibberish and spite -
that hopelessness is real to me;
not now and then, but all the while.
I live as if the lights go out
when other people smile.
For what we had and what we want
count nothing in the scheme of things;
the only truth is fathers lose,
and children cease to sing.