Cracking Chains

Brayron's hair was barely there
And what still clung had faded
Bitter plows had creased his brows
Proof of the man he hated  
 
Iron paved his spiteful paths  
And now he faces closing 
He's left with naught 
But noxious thoughts  
Of the man he spent opposing
 
~~~  
 
Single-malt evenings
His folks on the rocks
He'd obstruct the offense
Eat up half those knocks...  
Stay up weeping in the boondocks
 
Countrified curses clashed
Dad's fists a hard flurry  
Mom pleaded for love
Begging for change
(And though seems strange)  
Women stayed in the Thirties  
 
His second grade stitches snitched
Excuses sewn anew
"I was kicked while milking Susan"
The asinine alibis grew
Nobody helped
Everyone knew  
 
Suppressing his shadows  
The callouses thickened
By ambition for rancor
Hostility sickened
 
His mother
Always and always
The echo of better times
Terribly tossed
If she dared to accost...  
At night he's pledge by the cross
He'd end his
Fucked
Forsaken  
Father  
Whatever it would cost...  
 
~~~  
 
But torpedos thwarted what he set to conclude  
They launched him to unwanted war
It wasn't even his feud  
 
Two years in the clutch of damned uncle Sam
Sustained by vivid visions
Of snuffing out his old man  
Torment fed him luxury  
Fantasies when quiet
Revenge sustained him like a diet
His soul a knotted riot  
 
Havoc hammered through his head
The clashing comrades fell  
Despite the deathtoll decked in shrapnel
His father was his Hell
 
His only real bombshell
 
~~~  
 
The relent of regime (at final last!)  
And bound west to the farm...  
With a wound-up chest
On the terminal quest
And a pregnant firearm
-  
Up the sagged old boards  
Perched on familiar loam  
Through the porch, new weeds had grown
A vague voice drifted out so sadly...  
"Boy, welcome home"  
 
(Somehow he had known...)  
 
Aunt Maria explained
"One bad fight escalated
Your mother, she's buried, cherry tree..."  
And his father had vacated
(Fled and never found)  
The conspiracy deflated
 
Vengence truncated  
 
~~~  
 
And now Brayron slumps
Hands translucent like his curtains
Eyes, filmy clouds
Fixed
Probing
Hurting
   
~~~  
 
Brayron's own battered boy
Now soundly grown  
Sees the finish impending
His dad under a headstone
And steals glares in the end
At the man who stayed poisoned
 
Who chose not to mend  
 
He too bore beatings
A sequel
The closure undone
Toxic circles spun backward
Running over the son  
Inherited hatred
Unwarranted wrong
The blood and the tirades...  
All childhood long
 
A wretched replay of the darkest song
 
***  
 
But the volition to vary always stands
To crack the chain
A choice to grasp love with compassionate hands 
So he has
 
And it's how it ends