Happy B'day Dad - Poem: Hizzoner's Glasses

I'd be remiss if I didn't celebrate my dad's 90th birthday today, at least for the five minutes it takes to blog about him.

Rest in peace, dear ole dad. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, died in Huntingdon Valley, PA. Buried in Cleveland. Reminds me of the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy.

In his Marine Corps days. He was a staff sergeant stationed at the now infamous Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Hello Susanna Ojalvo, a friend who wanted to marry dad, but he was engaged to my mom Bernice.)

B/c he was a fast typist he was the paymaster and never saw combat.

Altho I've wrin lots of poems about him, I can't ever find them! There must be a good way to organize poetry but I've never figured it out.

Let me send a quick email to Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote The Raven, Eulalia, The Bells, Annabel Lee, among others.

Gee, I can't believe my mind still works at age 65. Oh, those are the EARLY memories. Those are the ones we remember.

Here's one I fetched from the depths:

HIZZONER'S GLASSES

on the yahrzeit of my father's death

it wouldn't be fair to call you vain
you wore your hair short
so women would not think
of running their fingers through it
but did anyway

a master of disguise
you never showed your
freckled arms
beneath your proud uniform
of suit and tie of the day
o refugee from
a barefoot childhood of
torn pants and never
a bicycle of your own

nor did you think to
remove your eyeglasses
to show your keen eyes -
how they swept across a room
unbeheld
gleaning grains of knowledge
free to the daring observer

eyeglasses
at rest on ears like
succulent apricots
not like now
when they are no longer seen
nor used as cushions as
they were back then
to rest those very same
eyeglasses I hold now
in my hand

who deemed it thus
that eyeglasses
desk chairs with arms
Country Squire station wagons
and Schaeffer fountain pens with
refillable ink bladders
are all that's left
after the man is gone?