Pub crawl in Oz down the Yellow Brick Road

Dad was scarecrow stubble,

all jaundiced meandering mumbles.

He didn't look much at people

those last few years,

staring off into space

at scabbed tidbits

of pleasant small talk crippled,

slack jawed all wrong.

Watergate remembrances

of Colgate on the leaking sink

and Terry Jacks on the transistor

drowning out Mom and Dad in a fester

of afternoon numbing,

drunk and drained of the blister

that was morning father shaking

on the living room couch,

dry heaving over Barbara Walters

or sometimes J.P. Patches

but never Captain Kangaroo.

Pops, with his steaming wake up cup

of hair o' the dog that ate him whole,

barking up the pieces

of our fractured family photo album,

burying the remnants

of our torn and frayed lives.