The Pains of a father.

There in tattered clothes he sat,
Lost in the confines of a deep thought,
To himself he muttered; “this must be the devil’s wrath.”
Life had brought him nothing but oats of pain;
Penniless as he was, this made him insane.

He had amassed all the degrees,
But to success he seems not to have paid his fees.
Darkness had spread across his destiny,
All his fat dreams had been made tiny.

Trickles of tears dropped down his wrinkled face
As he stared at his youth in a frame which hung on a wall,
Those were days of grace-
When he was a student at Awo hall.
Time had stolen his dream-
Which had been made a shallow stream.

All nights his bed was cold
From the warmth of a mystery unfold.
The feminine chord that held his love
Had flown like a wandering dove-
In search of pleasure and a greener pasture,
In awe he cried at his miserable torture.

He looked on at his sleeping children,
Together they had wandered in penury’s den,
He had brought them their misfortune
And they their future seems to be in ruin.
He seems to have seen God from his ceiling
As he whispered words of supplication;
“Lord, make these little ones a cure for my infection.”

To him smile never seems to exist.
He has been subjected to shame
As debt is next to his name.
Years he had survived –
Brings his hopelessness revived.
One cold night he had thought of murder-
Too tired of his life to go further.

What example will he be to his children?
“A suicidal-poverty stricken father!”
He resented his children calling him such
And vowed they must survive the scorch.

As the clock ticks to dawn
And night to the unknown it seems to run.
With hope he went off to work,
Even if it is to whisk loads at the dock,
To survive and secure the little one’s future.