Blood Brother's Blood

My blood boiled
It was so hot out there in the field tilling and tilling
Spilling my sweat to soften mama and papa’s curse
Attached to me before my birthing, hardly fair
Kicking and screaming, they said, I emerged
A blinking manchild into a new day dawning
So bad it was, they said, God Almighty himself had to help
Get me out

Believe me
It wasn’t easy extracting life from out of that damned earth
That bloody fruit will hang over me to my dying day
A sign of my inadequacy
Dripping with jealous juice for him, younger smug son
Striving always I was, am still, a man for all seasons
Hands bleeding at nightfall
Feet caked in mud

My offering was born of my bent back
I was never good enough
Not for them, or for him or for God Almighty
I tried, I really did, to sing His praises
But would feel father's steel gaze boring into my skull
In the sweltering heat
It made me so, so mad
They all knew, all of them, what my offering was really made of

Even the livestock skipping in golden boy’s field knew it
So snug in their animal skins
No wonder my coutenence fell when God Almighty leaned towards him
Lazing, gazing upon his grazing stock
Whilst I kissed the dismal dust
No wonder sin pounced and devoured
What was left of my God-given goodness
You must master it?

You mayest master it?
My choice to open the door and unleash that sharp-teethed dog?
My choice to murder my God-given brother?
However, my resume is noteworthy
I was the one who lived despite my dogged early years
A vagrant, a wanderer, climbed the ladder to be the first city's builder
Father of culture, a murderer marked by God’s mercy
A workoholic

And humanity unfurled from my line, mine
But in rising early and sleeping so little, so late
I’d hear my pumping red heart by day
In the beating of the steel
In the sharpening of spears
But at night in restless slumber I’d know what was the sound
It was my blood brother’s blood crying out for vengence
From that dammed bloody curse of my ground