The Orphan's Song
The Orphan’s Song,
Brandon K. Nobles, 2011
1
At three years old we kids were told
That our families had gone.
They were dead, or gone instead
An old time orphan’s song
They walked with boots of lead
To the poplars by the pond
For they are the fledgling rose
To wonder ‘til their death,
what had they done wrong,
To have been so disposed.
Left like a paper on the lawn
On the step of an empty home
And their absence in their life
Bores into them a hole
A hole they’ll try to fill with pills
A hole that feeds on fear and grows.
The pilgrims waiting on the boat,
Will never see the shoal.
The sunshine barns, that orphan farm
Where all the strays went young
we tilled the earth until the birth
Of night-time killed the sun.
The plot behind the church they worked,
Until the day was done.
We tramped around the muddy ground
Something in the plan went wrong
Always walking heads cast down
In their pathetic throng
The evening bell let out a wail,
The mumbling unsaid words, the song,
That all the orphans sing.
We walked in circles all along,
And never found our way back home.
There was no beacon bright.
Staring at the ceiling, feeling,
Nothing would be alright,
We joined their cult and prayed along
Singing plagiarized angel songs.
God is a petty puppeteer,
And we must be the strings
Some say that they are far away,
The stars–
The light crept through the window blinds,
And scattered ‘round the bars.
2
The nuns came in at night, at ten,
to tuck the youngest into bed,
Her poor effort to console,
She knelt to pray instead:
She read the Bible line for line
When it was bedtime story time
She read until they slept.
To quiet cries she heard at night,
Sleeping pills in chocolate milk,
We drifted off, into the sky,
No glimpse of heaven going by.
We dreamed of open windows
they were no longer barred
and from the window we could
see the lovely distant stars
Whose light had been fractured
as it passed the iron bars.
Drifting further, drifting by,
An icy stream across the sky
Too high to drift–-to disappear,
And soon did fall my eyes;
The kiss of death swelled in my chest,
Just one more kiss, the last–
I’d save it for a memory,
That knew me in the past.
And lurching by the days that followed,
For the children in their numbered cage,
Each hope for liberation hollow,
The days before fall like tomorrow,
Their freedom was minium wage.
And there they might as well be stone,
The rocks they
Alone and wistful did we play,
We did not speak, we only heard
We had nothing to say.
The children wept at night, they pined,
That some potential might they find,
Some mother bird their eggs to find.
Nothing to do, nowhere to go,
They decided on a magic show.
3
We rose at dawn the sun’s rebirth
We put our gray pajamas on.
That morning bell let out its wail
As if it were a drum
Me marched together in a throng
We followed one another dumb
Our stomachs grumbled and we mumbled
Our melancholy tune,
That the orphan’s at the Barn once said.
The orphan’s never got to smile
Or see their home on Miracle Mile.
They made their beds
and combed their heads
We brushed our teeth, and bright
Potential day one day away
The kids were up all night:
Dreaming of their own bedroom,
A mother and a father too,
A dog to play outside;
Posters on the bedroom wall,
Smiling portraits in the halls
Just to be loved, to have that pride
Was often what they were denied.
The older kids hast lost their hope,
Potential days were cruel jokes.
We brushed our teeth
and combed our hair
We wagged our bushy tails.
When they came in, we stood up straight,
And smiled to make the sale.
They looked at one, turned their chin,
And left her in the iron pen.
They didn’t pick a kid that day,
They looked them over, walked away,
The old kids they knew this well.
Each drifted back to their own hell.
Brandon K. Nobles, 2011
1
At three years old we kids were told
That our families had gone.
They were dead, or gone instead
An old time orphan’s song
They walked with boots of lead
To the poplars by the pond
For they are the fledgling rose
To wonder ‘til their death,
what had they done wrong,
To have been so disposed.
Left like a paper on the lawn
On the step of an empty home
And their absence in their life
Bores into them a hole
A hole they’ll try to fill with pills
A hole that feeds on fear and grows.
The pilgrims waiting on the boat,
Will never see the shoal.
The sunshine barns, that orphan farm
Where all the strays went young
we tilled the earth until the birth
Of night-time killed the sun.
The plot behind the church they worked,
Until the day was done.
We tramped around the muddy ground
Something in the plan went wrong
Always walking heads cast down
In their pathetic throng
The evening bell let out a wail,
The mumbling unsaid words, the song,
That all the orphans sing.
We walked in circles all along,
And never found our way back home.
There was no beacon bright.
Staring at the ceiling, feeling,
Nothing would be alright,
We joined their cult and prayed along
Singing plagiarized angel songs.
God is a petty puppeteer,
And we must be the strings
Some say that they are far away,
The stars–
The light crept through the window blinds,
And scattered ‘round the bars.
2
The nuns came in at night, at ten,
to tuck the youngest into bed,
Her poor effort to console,
She knelt to pray instead:
She read the Bible line for line
When it was bedtime story time
She read until they slept.
To quiet cries she heard at night,
Sleeping pills in chocolate milk,
We drifted off, into the sky,
No glimpse of heaven going by.
We dreamed of open windows
they were no longer barred
and from the window we could
see the lovely distant stars
Whose light had been fractured
as it passed the iron bars.
Drifting further, drifting by,
An icy stream across the sky
Too high to drift–-to disappear,
And soon did fall my eyes;
The kiss of death swelled in my chest,
Just one more kiss, the last–
I’d save it for a memory,
That knew me in the past.
And lurching by the days that followed,
For the children in their numbered cage,
Each hope for liberation hollow,
The days before fall like tomorrow,
Their freedom was minium wage.
And there they might as well be stone,
The rocks they
Alone and wistful did we play,
We did not speak, we only heard
We had nothing to say.
The children wept at night, they pined,
That some potential might they find,
Some mother bird their eggs to find.
Nothing to do, nowhere to go,
They decided on a magic show.
3
We rose at dawn the sun’s rebirth
We put our gray pajamas on.
That morning bell let out its wail
As if it were a drum
Me marched together in a throng
We followed one another dumb
Our stomachs grumbled and we mumbled
Our melancholy tune,
That the orphan’s at the Barn once said.
The orphan’s never got to smile
Or see their home on Miracle Mile.
They made their beds
and combed their heads
We brushed our teeth, and bright
Potential day one day away
The kids were up all night:
Dreaming of their own bedroom,
A mother and a father too,
A dog to play outside;
Posters on the bedroom wall,
Smiling portraits in the halls
Just to be loved, to have that pride
Was often what they were denied.
The older kids hast lost their hope,
Potential days were cruel jokes.
We brushed our teeth
and combed our hair
We wagged our bushy tails.
When they came in, we stood up straight,
And smiled to make the sale.
They looked at one, turned their chin,
And left her in the iron pen.
They didn’t pick a kid that day,
They looked them over, walked away,
The old kids they knew this well.
Each drifted back to their own hell.