My latte life

light as foam

sunny day

my favorite trail.

 

Turns to

coffee grounds

with just one look

 

at an effigy

that limps toward me.

His muted screams

familiarity.

 

Turning wheels

shopping cart

gravel and dirt.

 

His empty planet eyes

pull me like gravity.

 

And his cavernous face

seems to drop me in the pit

of his untold story

that I somehow know.

 

***

​

I’ll call him Dave

and his fall was hard

like the booze he used

when he used to care.

 

But clouds of drugs

were a cushion to him

as he floated off too easy.

 

And since then

nothing is easy for Dave.

 

His life is full:

blood soaked wounds

machine gun blasts

napalm gusts

‘copter blades.

 

Dave found out

that the hard stuff

is the easy stuff.

 

Now,

nothing is easy for Dave.

 

Who flew to Vietnam

like a strong, proud goose

in a V shaped flock.

 

But Victory eluded him

and Vice took its place.

 

Now, a Vise grips his head

since he woke up hung-over

to see, that he had been used.

 

So he used.

And no one told him

that he would find,

the hard stuff was the easy stuff.

Now, nothing is easy for Dave.

 

Who can’t fly away that way.

 

He can’t pay the fare

or just doesn’t care.

 

I look aside

afraid of his eyes

 

I don’t want to see

his mirror of me.

 

He who had fought

what some thought that I ought.

 

And my tennis shoes

morph into combat boots

as I march into a fog

where nothing is easy.