EMPTY AND DROPLESS

They jiggered the bottle

until it was gone

empty and dropless

they still carried on.

"ho-hoing" and back-slapping

the way old friends do

slipped the bar-keep a twenty

pub lively passed two.

Piano-man played "Passing"

a tune both men knew,

slit scar-tissue memories

awake from the booze.

Hidden behind the hedges of sleep

soldiers keep buried

their  cold muddy feet;

their sights of the war

grow cataracts,

the dead in the ditch

stayed secretly cached.

Old War Horses seldom

open their minds to

recalling the bloodshed

and grief of those times.

Until happenstance

finds two old Army friends

one missing an eye

the other two limbs.

They jiggered a bottle

until it was gone

empty and dropless

they sang their old songs;

kept ordering up

one more shot and a beer

until one or the other

let fall the first tear...

ﹶ©Pam Barletta