A Man Without A Flag

 

 

 

The painting was an old one

That was plain to see

To tell the truth it was the frame

That at first mattered most to me

 

I thought perhaps I could use it

So I laid my money down

I took it home unaware

Of the treasure I had found

 

It was a few days later

When I had a little time

I took a good look at the painting

That the old frame did so enshrine

 

The subject was a soldier

Clad in a tattered grey uniform

The look of defeat etched upon his face

A man so beaten, and forlorn

 

Around him the land lay in ruins

Smoke rising into the sky

A closer look into his face

Revealed a tear, in the corner of one eye

 

His body bent, his shoulders slumped

As he knelt down on one knee

His left hand was touching something

That in the painting one could not see

 

His right hand held a small scrap of cloth

It was no more than a soiled rag

Down in the one corner of the painting these words

Self-Portrait by A Man Without A Flag

 

The Poet W. L. Kite

 

©Copyright of W. L. Kite

4/21/2002