Tom Bell Poet Ode

Old Warrior

Old warrior, in the bar...
Sips on his small, warm beer...
It's still 1943 to him...
And inside he still holds fear...
The world hanging on the edge,
Of uncertainty....
What the future held,
No one could see....

Served his country,
Of that he's proud....
Seems no one any longer cares...
And his fellow warriors are now,
Above the cloud...
Soon he'll climb those stairs...

Vanishing like dinosaurs,
This American-Spartan hero...
Has little left to do...
Ask him about World War II,
He'd be glad he met you...

To show interest
In his sacrifices...
His wounded memories...
His changed life...
His long dead buddies,
His long dead wife...

His mate long gone,
He stares blindly at the TV,
Dressed in the poverty he lives
No one can get inside his head,
Save those so long dead...

He has nothing else to do
Be home alone, with old address books,
Of all his long dead friends,
Photos meaningless,
Except to him,
Time has cheated him,
By leaving him here
In the lonely bar, so dim...

Struggling to make ends,
Six dollars on the bar,
The past in the air,
At home he never cooks,
He just no longer seems to care....

Cigarette smoke in the air,
A forbidden pleasure now,
No one seems dare...
Used to be normal,
Things have changed so,
But not our old warrior,
He'll be the last of his kind
To go...

If today is his last,
That's just fine with him....
His future days will be the same...
The final die is cast.

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