My Mother’s Father

 

“Barber Shop” by Robert Cottingham

(Regarding Niccolò DeTore)

bay rum barber poet
stropped razors and verse
white handlebar mustache
handsomely lifted his smile
Neapolitan gold in his eyes
bootstrap pride in his step
classic rhetoric served at
each meal from his dapper
silk tie and trim waistcoat
surveying his long kitchen
table where thirteen young
minds learned their everlast
lessons of life in America
steeped in his practicum
lovingly eagerly wrapped
in his keen gentle wisdom

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

Shades of Sweeney Todd

Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd by Robert Steen

 

ungainly hands chopping beards
severed heads by mistake
filling baskets with accidents
stumbling on underground markets
with buyers for evident crimes

thus did a new business model
emerge from the wielding of razors
aggressively drawn straight across
ill-placed trust in those ungainly hands
of a new minted ultimate barber

My Mother’s Father

“Barber Shop” by Robert Cottingham

(Remembering Grandpa Niccolò DeTore)

bay rum barber poet
stropped razors and verse
white handlebar mustache
handsomely lifted his smile
Neapolitan gold in his eyes
bootstrap pride in his step
classic rhetoric served at
each meal from his dapper
silk tie and trim waistcoat
surveying his long kitchen
table where thirteen young
minds learned their everlast
lessons of life in America
steeped in his practicum
lovingly eagerly wrapped
in his keen gentle wisdom