Johnny Campbell by David Gross

always wore black biker's garb, Brando-style,

except for once when he tied a dirty pink tutu

he'd found at the dump around his greasy jeans

and followed behind the Halloween parade

until the chief of police had to pull him from two

zealous Baptists who dragged him down an alley

to beat the shit out of the queer.

Our mothers warned us to avoid him.

Dirty, Brillo pads erupting from nostrils,

ears, Groucho eyebrows, Harpo behavior.

In the sixties, at a wild party 

near the graveyard where he was sexton,

someone gave him a dose of L.S.D.

and grinning from ear to ear he disappeared

into the woods for three days.

Years later, punks broke into his ramshackle hut,

ransacked it, and finding nothing of value

stabbed him, doused it with gasoline,

and burned it to the ground.

Unclaimed by family or friend,

too poor to leave many memories.

Only an unmarked grave

behind a nearly forgotten cemetery

where honeysuckle is taking over.





David Gross' most recent collection is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017), recent work in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, and Otata. He and his wife Linda, live near the center of the Big Muddy watershed in southern Illinois where they enjoy grandchildren, gardening, birding, and hiking.