Homecoming

My humour shoots out, sparkles and glitters
Against a background of sadness.
This small town, childhood stage,
I stand luminously in spotlight.
Transfixed, self-accused, theatrical.
Can there be 50 years of this narcissism still to come?
There is nothing I wish to conquer
But you don't stop being a soldier
Simply because you wish like that.
Clumsy and insightful humour,
I laugh at the gap between who I am and want to be.
On, the suffering of not being perfect.
The childish patterns of my thoughts
Here in my childhood town.
I come swooping on slow feet,
Cigarette butts in my coat pocket
Scooped from the mainstreet for a smoke.
In the soft southern evening my face is transfixed
With a soft smile.
"You are the son who trys to throw away your inheritance!"
My father forgives me only slowly.
But I forgive myself
With a scraping bow.