freckle-faced
     jug-eared
          left-handed
skinny as a fungo bat
loose-jointed
     like a string-puppet
in sports  
     not great but
          scrappy and fun
long distance runner
     played hard
          no grudges
nobody’s idea of handsome
     voice like a scratchy record
married straight out of high school
     drafted
101st Airborne
     everybody had a dumb nickname
          Denny, Little Old Lady
               nobody remembers why
     Thua Thien, South Vietnam
          hit by an RPG
               August 5, 1968
smithereens in a body bag
days later, a letter
     informs
          he’s a daddy
Denny, if you’d lived sixteen more days
     you could’ve legally bought beer
I’m sixty-seven years old
     you’re forever
          almost twenty-one
    
Memorial Day 2015
We've lost them by the thousands.  
We grieve them one by one.

When I was younger,
I ran barefoot,
Innocent and happy.

As I got older,
I began wearing shoes,
Because that was 'cool'

They hurt my feet,
And killed my innocence.
They drew me to the edge of a cliff
And as I walked along it's edge,
I tripped over
A stupid shoelace,

And now I am falling,
Dreading hitting the ground,
All so I could be 'cool'

I was young
And you were beautiful
You were laughing
At my youth
I didn’t know
That you were lying
All I saw was naked truth
You were bored
I was a plaything
Killing time
Late afternoon
Came the evening
Shared a cigarette
Blew some smoke rings at the moon
Went inside
You made a drink
Said you needed time to think
The phone rang
I was thoughtful
Went into the other room
Turned the TV on
So I couldn’t hear
When I came back
I found you’d gone.
You left a note
Not of apology
But of conclusion
Just the same.
And a twenty for the taxi home.
You said that you were glad I came.
PwL  5/24/15

The Man in the Moon will be leavin’ soon
Officially, he retired.
But Polaris and some other stars
Are saying he got fired
The Man in the Moon would never leave
Of his own volition.
Management, cutting back on costs,
Is phasing out his position.

His quarterly reviews have not been going very well,
They say he isn’t any good with change.
When he gives his full attention, he seems to do ok,
But lately he’s been acting kind of strange,
His bosses claim he sleeps all day.
And on cloudy nights, he stays away,
(It’d be age discrimination if they said he’s getting old)
So they say that he won’t listen and won’t do as he is told.
They say because he has seniority,
That he resents authority,
Won’t show his new boss how the job is done,
And in their final summary, out of ten, they gave him three,
Said that he doesn’t hold a candle to the sun.

But those of us who know his work
Know he would never, ever shirk
Responsibility, or jobs that must be done -
At night when he works overtime,
Countless souls look up to him, but
At night they’ll never, ever, see the sun.

If The Man in the Moon is told to leave
Our lives will be amiss,
So I took a poet’s initiative
To make management a list:

Reasons Not to Fire the Man in the Moon
Who will watch young lovers kiss?
Who will push and pull the tides?
Who will occupy the space
Where The Man in the Moon resides?
Who will tell the farmer when it’s time to plant his field?
Who will lead the eclipse when the sun needs lunar shield?
Who will be the subject of songs and nursery rhymes?
Who will notify the werewolf when it’s his changin’ time?
Who will calm the sailors after stormy nights at sea?
Who will make a silhouette of an owl in the tree?
Who will light the children’s path each All Hallows’ Eve?
Who would raise vampires from their coffins
Were The Man in the Moon to leave?

I ask these questions with a plea
Knowing that, if it were up to me
And I had the power to blunt the cutter’s knife,
We’d leave the Earth and Heavens as they’ve been for all these years,
And The Man in the Moon would have his job for life.
PwL  5/24/15w