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?
