Lou J. Klaiber

NIGHTS AT HOME

many
are the nights
beside dim lights
past midnight
at home

memory
lies awake
staring into darkness
and long ago

perhaps we live
my Brother
so that they
may remain

… and never
ever
die

poetry smells of gunpowder
in my dreams

I call out
as faces
flash across the night

names

… always the names
carved upon black granite

the cold wind of autumn
… blurs my vision
of brothers lost

to history.

Author’s Note: For Richard “Boondocker” Preston