The first one is blessed by God.  Nature.  Truth.
She comes to you, when you are ready, when
She too, is that part of you that’s ready,
The smile, the joy within finds its way out

And Love springs.

Alcohol as “drink,” un-guided living, the Devil
Himself intervene with love sometimes,
and we surrender it to adoption services, or
Some later date, convenient to the scared

And confused…

Anne was my first crush, and could have been
The only love of my life, and I would have been
blessed—this, if life was not saturated in Alcohol
as “drink,” the Devil playing with us, confusing

and Usurping—

Like the land in America we stole, usurping the
Name of God, Christ, the Bible to steal land from
a Natural people connected to the Great Spirit,
Creation itself forgotten by Europe, Rome,

Book thumps and war.

We killed the Druids and almost their spirit.
Romans conquered themselves, we too—
The English took on the worst of Rome, made
it our own, conquered ourselves and God

in Greed for the Crown.

Anne, meanwhile, couldn’t have sparkled more,
Myself unable to tell her I loved her.  Because
I was a Viking.  And Roman.  And Alcoholic.
And bedeviled.  I thought a flammable liquid

Good to drink.

***

I am a fool, am fooled—was born a drunk,
a liar and a thief.  A violent war monger
un-guided and destined for Hell—

Truth help me.  God help me.  Great Spirit
and Creation forgive me; my father’s sins
are mine, I climb and escape them only
with doses daily of Truth, doses daily of

Love and forgiveness.

Anne lives in mountains, as do I—she there,
Me here, and I cannot make the weather
move her to me, only asking higher powers
to reward willingness for amends and Truth

with Health.

Will I die an example of what not to do?
Will I live to the hilt making amends for the past?
Can my message help the next child, blessed by Love,
But tempted and un-guided on his way to Hell?

Truth, son, will bring you back to Anne…