Son of a Gun

to Amanda Cardona for her twenty-fifth birthday

They say he first worked for the bad guys then
He saw he could work for the good guys when
They called him up not caring right from wrong
So slaughtered for both sides silent and strong
Since all he ever wanted was to kill
And this hunger was shared by other men

When he found out the good guys were worse than
The bad guys then he asked what kind of man
He was and his answer was to go mad
As honest killers have done and do still
His heart and mind broke beyond good and bad
Beyond the black breakwater of the will

I can finally understand him now
But used to seek to summon him somehow
To disappear imagined enemies
Who were not amenable to reason
One of my absent father fantasies
A childhood nightmare of killing season

And so my father Wallace Dean Lance was
A hitman for the cause of just because
Which seemed I suppose like reason enough
And now he is dead as I will die too
Should such time come as I can bear no more
Until then that which keeps me here is you

You and a certain curiosity
My hitman father passed along to me
Since I am here with my ticket paid for
Past pain to remain until our play ends
To place my rhyme in space and time and soar
Because unlike my father I have friends

Not friends with connections nor friends with guns
People like that are not friends anyway
Who go away when the going gets tough
But friends like you who are genuine ones
With whose help I am able to get through
The night that I might live a better day

Son of a hitman bad good and then mad
My father's life seems meaningless and sad
And though I have killed no one that you know
It is hard to stay and easy to go
Meaning costs more in the market these days
If I could afford some I would be glad

Balancing here on the blade of always
I mean to make atonement for the sin
Which burns in the blood of my family
And would prevent me before I begin
But there is a certain stubbornness in
A son of a hitman a son like me

If it can be done then I am the one
To balance the wheel: a son of a gun

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVII