VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

The OSPO (The Oh So Prolific One) can find inspiration anywhere Here’s another epic from Leon Freilich.

Butt offs and cut-offs: I like it a lot.

MACHKNEESMO

Let it snow, let it sleet, let it blow, let it freeze,
What you see all this winter’s a glut of bare knees.
They belong to the walkabout Boys of Park Slope
As they saunter the streets, somehow daring to cope
With a wind chill of twenty or even of zero,
Leading oldsters to sputter, My dear, oh my dear, oh.
For these "boys’" are no youngsters, not by a long shot
Nor are they a species that time has forgot.
These are men plainly thirties and forties and fifties,
So eternal youth is not one of of their gifties,
Though observing the group as they walk in their shorts
(Just as if they were guests at posh summer resorts)
Makes you wonder what drives them to go in bare legs.
Too much vino? Excessive time spent with beer kegs?
Seeing them for the first time makes some think they’re runners,
Yet they’re  no
more that than they’re  aircraft gunners,
For as any Park Sloper can obviously tell,
The bare-legged battalion are clientele
Of the Food Coop or Key Food, whose bulky groceries
They are carrying home in their carts with great ease;
Or they’re back from a bank, either Chase or Astoria,
Always looking much gladder, not a whit any soria,
With their bellies sucked in and their shoulders held back,
All leg muscles a-bulge wholly prepped for attack.
They’re determined to show no effects of the cold,
Being made from a sturdier, manlier mold,
And the shorter the covering, the taller they reach,
These amazing specimens of Snowy Beach.
So here’s to the guys in the wintertime cut-offs
For whom macho means more than does freezing their butt offs.