Frank DeCanio

Approaching Age


Until fleet-footed passion
paused at the crossroads
of my stride
and lost its rage;
until the staff of Life
became for me
in tottering age, a cane,
I walked like a man
who hides his wealth
behind apparent dearth of means.
I didn’t need
to brag or swagger
like a bucking stag,
but bottled up youth’s season
in a bunch of rags.
Weighed down with gold,
I didn’t need to show my stuff
or strut with peacock pride;
my cache was bona fide.
Now like the empty hull
of an ancient ship,
I fly my banner high;
bright, silken threads
around the sodden deck inside.



Eulogy

(for Anna Nicole Smith)


At 39, the woman’s dead.
Forget the barbs and mordant jokes
of heartless, heavy-footed folks
who, loth to pity, stomp instead
sacred ground. She whom Nature bred
to suffer nurture’s brutal yokes
has sloughed off those oppressive spokes
around the wheel that makes us tread
with labored footsteps to the grave.
Thus, she‘s been freed of further grief
from those survivors who won‘t waive
the judgment spared them by belief
in spirits predisposed to save
those who themselves won‘t grant relief.

Frank DeCanio has been published in more tan 30 magazines(and/or e-zines); Danger, Pleiades,
Red Owl, Nuthouse, Love‘s Chance, Words of Wisdom, Rook publishing; with Hazmat, Medicinal Purposes, Blue Unicorn and Ship of Fools pending. On the web he is on POETZ and Thick with Conviction.

 Current Issue:
October 2007

Melinda Blount
Frank DeCanio
Bobbi Dykema
Taylor Graham
John Grey
Don Kloss
Alicia Matheny
Pam Pignataro
Jeremy Rich
Bill Roberts
Bethany Rountree
Tom Sheehan
Kelsey Upward

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