David's 40th "Sins of my Reticent Son"

The smell of free beer has lured all the riffraff here to honor our special guest.
Now, The doors are all barred, so listen up hard, until I get this off of my chest.

You all had to come and be, like sharks in the sea, smelling fresh blood in the water.
Swimming in the shallows, crowding the gallows, watching the lamb at the slaughter.

I’ve waited forty years and before he disappears, he’s getting a piece of my mind.
The reason I’m grey is he made me this way, I feel like I’ve been through the grind.

He’s left me twisting in the wind, thoroughly chagrined.  Tonight it’s all gonna change.
I’m full up to the brim and I can throw shit at him, and use him like a practice range

No parent could suffer anything tougher so today I’m giving him both double barrels.
I’m blasting his little ass with rock salt and glass while he listens to Christmas carols.

Never followed the rules, six different schools!  His parents were absolutely stricken.
He went through in a coma, so instead of a diploma, they gave him a rubber chicken.

He’s not bad at sales, and he stays out of jails, and some how he’s avoided the courts.
But I can’t get him to dress, for the sake of success, he only owns a few pairs of shorts                                               

Doc Martin boots don’t go with suits. He wore one for ten minutes when he married.
It’s In the closet all the while, long out of style.  He’ll wear it on the day that he’s buried.

He doesn’t own colored sox, I don’t think he’s a Knox, but his mother swears I’m his dad.
There’s no social graces that David embraces and he certainly would never wear plaid.

You’d think that by forty, he’d wear something sporty, like slacks n’ a Tommy Bahama.
He could show up in style, just once in a while, but he’d rather just piss off his Momma.

His “T” shirts are disgusting, socially untrusting, their slogans, obnoxious and rude.
The message they shout, lends a benefit of doubt. Distance is kept from the crude.

I do find it strange that he likes the golf range, it’s certainly not something I taught him.
He plays in the dirt and he loves getting hurt, so it’s probably something I bought him.

He’s a pretty good shot, but careful he’s not.  He shot me with a roman candle onetime.
We were shooting at each other and I ran out of cover, so I couldn’t get him on a crime.

I have to admire, it set my hat on fire.  There’s still times when I wear it once in a while.
It helps me to remember, a dad can’t be too tender, but also it maintains my style.

He once pulled a “Richard Prior”, set himself on fire playing with something of danger.
Screaming like a girl, running like a squirrel fanning flames for the old Poem Stranger.

You’re supposed to drop and roll and not lose control, snuff out the error of your ways.
But your so called friends had a means to their ends, and just had to praise your blaze.
 
I love my son Dave, and I do know that he’s brave, but foolhardy springs to my lips.
Jumping dunes in the dark in a most graceful arc, can only end you up at Scripps.

The game of Medevac, or setting fire to a Cadillac, or let’s blow up a bottle of propane.
It would ease my mind if I could paddle his behind, and urge him a little less profane.

Instead of a woman to flaunt, he plays hard to want, but maybe it’s a question of pride.
Never brings ‘m around, to say “Look what I found.”, he’s a little on the secretive side.

Since he’s been wedded, he’s really hard headed, can’t pound any sense into his skull.
He’s very thick skinned, and as fickle as the wind but you’d never describe him as dull.

Thus far he survives like a cat with 9 lives, but he’s pissed off his guardian savior.
His mother and I, though we continue to try, can no longer condone his behavior.
                            
Leading us to the cane, the trophy of the insane, a rite of passage at a ripe young age.
The transition to change when our lives rearrange and we’re finally off minimum wage.

The logic is twisted, but his name is enlisted, beneath men who attest to his validity.
In other words it’s the men, who pioneered there again and survived their own stupidity.

But it’s his legacy now, he survived it somehow, and some secrets will never be told.
He’ll pass it to another who has tortured his mother, someone that folly has paroled.

Happy birthday son what’s done is done. But you made it by God’s given grace.
Since the day you sprouted, I never doubted, my fingers were crossed just in case.