Here he comes,
walking with that peg-legged gait
knobby knees bending the wrong way

no cane for him, though
not for this old campaigner

chin juts out
hawk nose
eyes of black marble
challenge all comers

amuses the young toughs
with their trashy tattoos

he has but one, and it’s purple

he has felt, and he has seen
infernal abominations of body and soul

and so, this rheumatic incorrectness,
this maladjusted frame
will stop him not

on he lumbers
to whom will he speak?