Brian Dyin’

Brian Dyin’

I realized young that in a foreign land

I would have been a criminal, a different kind of man

And my life lived out loud and the crazy things I did

Would be the life I lived in shadows, be the life I hid

But when I saw you boys playing soldier running towards the Dome

A voice inside my head whispered,

That’s my home

That’s my home

I’ve spent my life pushing back at the government

Trying to honor the things my mother meant

When she said all grace is heaven-sent

And we are all equal in God’s eye

I got an FBI file as long as my arm

I got friends in prison for just working a farm

I got my father in mind – thirty years on the force

Who was the authority while his son was the source

Of agitation, confrontation and liberation in the course

Of getting high.

Very high.

But when I saw your revolution on T.V.

That same voice whispered,

That’s not me and never will be

That’s just a mob that murdered a cop

Who was doing his job when he told you to stop

So you grabbed an extinguisher and extinguished the cop

His name was Brian

And though you say you have no piece in it

Brian dyin’.

You little piece of shit

He loved his dogs, his family said

He loved his family, now he’s dead

Because your mob crushed in his head

Brian dyin’, What more can be said?

When you killed a cop just because

I saw for the first time what a traitor was

And Brian dyin’, just because

Made me see what treason does

Traitor is the only word that will do

Look up “traitor” in the dictionary

And you find you.

For Brian Sicknick (1978-2021) and my Father