Trumpet Boy
a small photo of a boogie-woogie air force trumpet boy
no simple soldier -that one who waited but yearned for the sun to land over the yardarm
and after the war a challenge to avoid wooden nickels
still they were saying harder where there's none but he felt a pig in a poke waiting
back in the old days he sold everything from soup to nuts charmed all the stooges from here to timbuc times two
always knew where the crow flew had been where the brave dare not go could tell a tale or two if he thought you gave a tinker's damn but compared to other war stories his wounds mounted only to a hill of beans
that horn he blew like gangbusters and for two bits he could be three sheets in the wind now, without the boat he has missed the ship he couldn't see for looking
he's lost now where the sun doesn't shine and it's time to pull the plug
© Diane Stevenson Schmolka (after reading Faith Johnston's: A Man Who Played the Trumpet, Prairie Fire Vol.30, no.3, Autumn 2009)
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Page last modified on December 27, 2014, at 09:02 AM