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enjoy this Kenneth DiMaggio writing in the free cc&d Tax Day 2011 PDF file chapbook Poems and Stories from The Blue Collar Book of the Dead				You can also order this as a 2011 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book Poems and Stories from The Blue Collar Book of the Dead

Army

Kenneth DiMaggio

It began with a full floored drive
in a stolen Oldsmobile
down a Connecticut street
hilly enough to imitate
Steve McQueen’s San Francisco
car chase scene that ended
before a judge who let you choose
between jail or serving
your country and six months after
swearing to defend the U.S.A.
you were away without leave
in the town where your old man girl
friend and half of the hoodlums you
grand theft-ed life with guilt-tripped you
back to the barracks and like
your arms —get your soul
patriotically tattooed

And six months later
when you fragmented half
your head off from a government
issued rifle most of us were glad
to see you still got
an honorable veteran’s burial

—but just like John Lennon
said of Elvis the day after
he died

you who once stole a car
that you meant to drive
to Oklahoma to see
and maybe even race
against one of them tornadoes

—you died the day
you went into the army

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