Marvin - B. Dolan

Because his father was a man of the cross

Who said his son was a slave to the flesh

When the spectacle ended, The charges were dropped

Marvin was left with a hole in his chest

He could’ve brought down a mountain

When he pounded on a table

Or made the world collapse

For a lapse in behavior

The pastor never spared the rod

But taught the wrath and fear of God

To stop this, godless

Passion from burning

Barking from the throne while the castle falls…

He had a hand to smash the balance

A voice like a vortex

A temper like a terror threat

A head like a hornet’s nest

Every day the levee breaks

The flood gates, the bloody face

The black eye, baptized in shame

He brought home the battlefield

Sealed off the exits

Crawling up the walls

Absorbing the aggression

The source of his depression

The hurricane raging

The awful tension sent his hands to the piano

Forged a heaven in his heart

But dragged him back to hell

When the arguments would start

Because his father was a man of the cross

Who said his son was a slave to the flesh

When the argument ended, The music would stop

Marvin was left with a hole in his chest

He mapped the length of his son’s back With a leather belt

Sapped his strength with tongue lashings and heavy guilt

Attacked his legs with such savage and deadly skill

The cracks left in the punched plaster were never filled

Patched together from fragments a sense of himself

Advocate for compassion and the sensual

As parents sent the young packing to the depths of hell

The tattoo of guns clapping;

the end of the world

A marriage bed unraveling & a wedding bell

Cracked.

He fell into drug habits the empty shell

The tragic end of love’s passion a temple that fell

The collapse of such a fragile and sensitive will

Relapsed to ugly patterns of kill or be killed

To combat the drunken shadow and wrestle the swell

Came back to the blood he battled where the devil dwelled

To smash the glass;

and shatter himself

After the sudden blast a heavy quiet fell

He asked his father «Why?»

The silence wouldn’t tell

After the gun blast a heavy quiet fell

He asked his father «Why?»

Because his father was a man of the cross

Who said his son was a slave to the flesh

When the argument ended, The music would stop

Marvin was left with a hole in his chest