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I NEVER CRIED FOR MY FATHER I remembered Seeing other fathers Hugged their children And I wished I knew him But I didn’t And it left me hollow Without that love
He was a bad man Very mean So they said He drank, cursed And beat my eldest sister This made her harder Later she defended Us 3 other timid ones
Actually I never got a chance To cry for him But later I did When I learnt He died and was buried I remembered I buried my head In my pillow And wept
He never went far in school But he read the whole newspaper And he read a lot of History For he had a library On our wagonette With all his schnapps glasses Which we dare not touch But all admired them And his History books
He had a green thumb His crops came in fresh and full And he was known for this Among all the villagers Yet we were afraid of him For when he called us We trembled
We lived in fear Always trying to please him My mother kept the best plate For him and he was Always pleased And we breathed A sigh of relief Until the next day
He had so much love for the land And none for us So much love for reading history And none for us Growing up without A father’s love Is like growing up With a handicap You learn to live with it But it never goes away
Today I have 2 boys All grown up I spent my life Living for them And they are happy And when I think Of my cruel father I wonder up to this day And still can’t find the answer
We dreaded his homecomings If he missed the bus We knew he’d be drunk We hid our night clothes And waited As he approached Swearing at us We hid Ran away to his brother’s And spend the night Until morning When he is sober
He never gave me a hug Never praise me For my A’s In my exam results Never say I love you Not to me Not to my sisters Or to my mother
I remembered How he was tight With his purse How my mother Sold flowers To a priest And when he came home He was querying And I wanted to please I said, “Pa Mr Mack Didn’t come today” And he stretched his hand out And my mother had to hand Over the bit and a half * When he left My mother picked up A piece of firewood And thrashed me Then she cried Hugged me And gave me a gill **
Today it comes back When I see a sad movie Whose father behaved The same darn way When they threw Their tempatantrums Hit their kids Swear at their wives Yes I cry at the movies But I never cried for my Pa ~Norman Datt~ * A bit n’a half was 12 cents ** A gill was a big copper coin like a silver dollar worth 2 cents
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