The Hard Stuff Is the Easy Stuff
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
a muted message of familiarity.
Turning wheels shopping cart gravel and dirt.
His empty-planet eyes pull me in like gravity.
And his cavernous face drops me in the pit
of a story he hasn’t told that I somehow know.
He’s Dave, let’s say. 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.
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 them
mirroring 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.