Rough Hewn by Tom Giebel
I’m my own man
understated
elegant in a rough way
a cup of black tea
in a coffee frenzied rush hour
not a pretty boy
I don’t do things to be different
I am different
if you’re looking for cool
look elsewhere
I’m pleated pants
in flat front chino land
no validation needed
comfortable with silence
wearing a 1950 black Omega Seamaster
wind up baby
Way back when I first started this blog, there was a regular contributor to the NYC/Brooklyn missed connections named Frankie Leone. Frankie moniker was “the Borough of Lost Boys,” and his poetic offerings detailed the hedonism and loneliness of being young and living on the edge. Frankie passed away from a drug overdose in 2014, and when I started finding the “Do the Math” poems awhile later, they brought to mind an older, more mature version of Frankie. Still rough around the edges but getting by and surviving in the world. I like to think that Do the Math is the person and poet Frankie could have become if his path had been a different one.
