{"id":2223,"date":"2016-10-16T18:22:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T02:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/?p=2223"},"modified":"2016-10-16T18:22:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T02:22:51","slug":"leave-the-past-in-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/?p=2223","title":{"rendered":"Leave The Past In The Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Leave The Past In The Past<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n


\n<\/span>He drifted into town. He stayed all alone.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

No one knew where he called home.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He kept to himself. He liked it that way.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They say, it was likely, he wouldn\u2019t stay.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He was a mountain of a man. Easy to spot.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Most tried to avoid him, likely as not.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Then came the day when men were crying.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The caf\u00e9 caught fire & people were frying.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He ran in & carried people out.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Two at a time. He was stout.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He survived, but was badly burned.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He had little money, it was learned.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Through donations his bill was paid.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He got a job worth his pay grade.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He was called \u201cBig Bad John,\u201d after the song.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t his name, but he went along.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

One day he walked into church.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He sat in a pew like it was a perch.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He decided to tell the pastor. He was no fool.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He told the pastor his past, which no one knew.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The pastor turned white, while sitting in the pew.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Yet, he knew the story he was told was true.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this is a sin by you, son.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

I Know\u201d, he said, \u201cThy will be done.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The pastor invited him to join the church.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He said he would, for what it is worth.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long till he became a deacon.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He accepted without even blinking.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He met his soul mate at the church.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They dated a year. He put her first.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The wedding was a lovely one.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The whole town came, just for the fun.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Within a year they had a little boy.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He grew like a weed. He was their joy.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He was a chip off his old man\u2019s block.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Looked just like him. Solid as a rock.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Then, some bad men came to town.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They were following the son around.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

One day they grabbed\u00a0the son\u00a0and tied him up.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t gentle. They treated him rough.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They called his dad and said \u201cWe have your son.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYou tried to get away, but you could never run.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hunted for you for years. Now, you are ours.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYour son will die if you don\u2019t meet us at the bar.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

His past had caught up with him.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He knew that he had not done a sin.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

But, he might now, if his son was hurt.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He flexed his muscles, which tore his shirt.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He went\u00a0 to the bar. His son was there with them.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They immediately put a knife under his chin.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

His son strained his bonds and broke free.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He started kicking ass on the closest creep.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Soon, father and son were mopping up the floor.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Till the bad guys couldn\u2019t fight\u00a0anymore.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They were turned over to the police.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

They went to prison for kidnapping the son.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It was party time for everyone.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

People shouted \u201cLike father, like son.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Soon, election time had begun.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The Dad was elected mayor on a write in.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Everyone felt real safe with him.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

A deacon, mayor, hero, and local legend.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He was very proud to be their leader then.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

His life was much better than his secretive past.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He only prayed daily that it would last.<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

———————————–R. W. Johnson—–(2016)<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Leave The Past In The Past He drifted into town. He stayed all alone. No one knew where he called home. He kept to himself. He liked it that way. They say, it was likely, he wouldn\u2019t stay. He was a mountain of a man. Easy to spot. Most tried to avoid him, … Continue reading Leave The Past In The Past<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16,29,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-free-bird-poetry","category-life-lessons","category-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2224,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2223\/revisions\/2224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wordsmithwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}