Uncle Fred by Bradley Mason Hamlin

for F.N. Wright

Sorry,
it’s the meds,
he said

an endless
pharmaceutical
battle

with
the body
of one good
sailor

Vietnam
Vet
PTSD

and never
enough
cunt & whiskey

to make the
monkeys
stop singing
haunting
war songs

only
the art
released
the crazy steam
inside
the troubled valves

pictures
and poems,
stories
and the crack
of
the American beer can

as Uncle Fred
laughed at it all
and told us
to …

piss on the pope.