Yup

What beauty and serenity is gleaned

when you know the genes of you legacy

so you can blame you lunacy quivers

on some heritage of doubtful sanity.

 

Oh it gives my heart such joy

to know those other generation cowpokes

who “borrowed” cattle, sheep and neighbor’s wives

that are so many limbs on my family tree

saw the world through a whiskey shot glass,

I can feel so blessed, so full of justification

for every urge and excess that spills from my fingers.

 

And so what if history suggests

this proud clan of saddle maniac

did really strange things with sheep,

other people’s money

and anything that inspired

a moment of pure creative,

which treated the law as theory?

 

Truly gives me a source of pride

so I can explain my antics

without really saying it is my fault.

 

Yup, I lift up my ancestry with happiness

since it was never dull,

might have been if they

hadn’t fled town

before being caught

by some lynching party.

 

On those occasions

when those forebear traits

inflict me with some urge

until it ends with an accusing stare

over some missing item

or other questionable circumstance.

 

Gives me a chance to retort,

“Who me?”

Naturally a smirk follows

and makes it hard to claim

was the curse of my blood’s demented cells.