Dads and other misdemeanours

Dads and other misdemeanours

Praise,

What is it good for?

If it is given in haste,

Too late,

After the event,

When the moment has passed.

They go by so fast,

It is easy to miss them.

If all you see are

The mistakes

Waiting to happen.

Ever the critic,

Even when a kind word

Would be the balm

To heal an anxious child,

Standing in the wings,

Glancing past

The dewy eyed,

Sitting on the front row,

Trying to see his

Dad’s face.

With its ...just

Get off my case...

Expression.

Whether he was

Right or wrong.

It was always

The same old song.

Why bother at all?

It happens all the time

It is too much trouble

To make it.

He is still in the car,

Running out of a bar,

On the phone,

Like a dog with a bone.

Too busy to attend,

Until the curtain call,

And then pretends, he saw it all,

From the back,

And makes a crack,

About the sound not carrying.

How I need to project.

It made me grow up

Needing to protect

Myself.

Even from nice people,

Wanting to bite,

Before being bitten.

It only stopped

When I was smitten.

But even then

I almost lost the plot.

Blew it all,

Everything, just gone to pot.

And it would have,

If she had not

Believed,

I was worth the trouble.

Burst my bubble,

Set me free,

To be the man I want to be.

If only he had

Been the one

To see it in me.

I might have grown up sooner

Instead of being

This almost great, late bloomer