a century skipped
from one soup line
to the next

never thought I would
stand in one, a homeless octogenarian
who doesn't like soup

the library serves sandwiches,
Eden’s apples too, on Mondays, but gray Sundays
they are closed, so here I be
at a holy house

that feeds beggars, bankers
and ******, but only after servicing
our souls, with etudes on eternity
and other hymns to which
I am deaf

tomorrow I will visit the VA
for my monthly meds, free potions
to pacify me while I wait for a bed
in the shiny new castle,
forever being built

in the meantime, I get the shed
behind the shack, of another "brother"
who tells me war stories

that can't be true, since he
was but ten and two when
the last bird chopped its way
into the Saigon sky

the embassy below yet teeming
with ghosts, and the screaming hordes,
scurrying still in a conquered land, desperate  
victims of our proud command

I don't tell him he does not
speak the truth, for he gets even more
potent pills than I to keep
his demons at bay

today the broth has chicken
and rice, and our platoon slurps in unison
after another plaintive prayer
to a god I never knew

tomorrow, over my white
bread and bologna, we will
be able to sup in silence, in the
calm cathedral of tomes

where I will try in vain
to comprehend the mystic
Kabbalah, or perhaps read The Grapes of Wrath
to hoist healing hope of suckled redemption
before my ancient eyes

.