For such is the life of an odd man, everyone called Joe.

Day by day, amongst the rancid and vile decay,

of yesterday’s lonesome streets… he would roam,

looking, seeking forever needing a place,

to call his own.  

He was odd to me, until him, I got to know,

for you see, his stature betrays the man that he used to be,

for way back then, he was a man among men,

strong, courageous and free.

Brought up in the ways of goodness and right,

Oh But one day, oh so very long ago,

he received notice from the draft, that it was his turn to go.

He was eighteen and clean… fresh out of school,

too poor for college, and nobody’s fool.

For he knew that it was right and something, he must do.

After all someone must stand up and fight.

So off he went so valiant and brave

to fight in a faraway place called Vietnam.

It was there that he first smelled fear,

A place that still resonates with him here,

He saw a darkness that few have seen,

And today, even still, he battles his demons

from his dreams.

Oh but today, it is but twenty below

As old Joe shuffles alone upon the frozen snow.

Passersby, they look and stare,

and scoff at a man that they have never known.

But if they did, would they…would they,

to him, due respect show?

I know that I do…because I really know old Joe.

For he is a man among men, who fought way back when,

And many were the lives that he saved,

yet he never sought, nor never received praise.

Only the scoffs and disgruntled looks as he passes this way.

Yet alone on these rancid streets go many old Joe’s

Hungry, tired…and no place to call home,

all this and twenty below.

J. Allen Wilson © 2004