The Songstone

An ordinary New Jersey boy, nineteen. In Brittany the shrapnel shell that killed your pal, engendered dark, shut down a sheen of innocence. Your generation filled our stories, and some thanks that war was stilled are owed. These lines, inadequate between your monuments, my humble gift; a mean repayment from a rhymer all unskilled in awe, remembering your laughter: deep chuckles you left around like colored light, I knew why they all loved and cherished you. Nursed well enough by grandma, always true, to see you to the rest. Eternal quiet, at Arlington an honored guest’s asleep.

So there I was at the  Poets' cafe listening to the regulars and Daljit Nagra . At the interval I stepped outside with my thermos of coffee for a crafty snout. The door opened behind me and out came three young men with pints. One of them engaged me in conversation. I sighed inwardly; a pint of lager in the hand of one's interlocutor is a sure sign of impending boredom at best and unwanted aggression at worst. Lager!? In this weather? Fucking stuff should carry a health warning. Sure enough, the ginger whinger wore a Stella scowl to go with his Heineken hump and was scathing about the comedy act taking place in the other theatre. I adopted an air of unforced bonhomie , changed my register to street slang mode and agreed with everything he said. Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against a punch-up, especially with a fool who's had a skinful and wants to give it some large, but I had a poem to read. Anyway, I went back in and thought nothing more of it, but after ...