Dad did not choose the life he got

He was not happy with his lot

His own mom bound to his sick dad

He did the best with what he had

 

Learnt life was cruel; always taking

Learnt rules were subject to breaking

Lost his accent, and gained some degrees

Started writing poetry

 

An angry boy becomes an angry man

The life he lived, not the life he planned

A compromise: that withered, ugly thing

All symbolised within a wedding ring

 

Thought that his words might make the grade

To one day be published on the page

Turned out that he was far better

Piling up rejection letters

 

The failed writer’s focus went to sorting

Once writing books became thwarting 

The Oxford qualified grammarian

Became instead a librarian

 

An angry boy becomes an angry man

The life he lived, was not the life he planned

A compromise: that withered, ugly thing

All symbolised within a wedding ring

 

In the shelves he fucked frustration away

With different women, on different days

Like Jagger once said, no satisfaction

But at least sex offered him distraction

 

Yet even when he finally found romance

Dad could not keep it in his pants

And when he said “I do”, in his heart he knew

The vows that he’d made would not stay true

 

DAD