Frank V. Gardner Poems

All through our lovely married life
I've had to go away.
And it was always you, my dear,
Who was back home to stay.
...

My father, who I hardly knew,
Was never one to shirk.
He died in nineteen twenty four,
While helping friends at work.
...

The day that Danny went away
He didn't make a fuss.
It was the second day of May....
He left a note for us.
...

Today, I sat me down to ponder
Why I write like this:
Four metric feet, first line of text,
And three feet in the next.
...

The body man is in a job
That he's been in for years.
He gets it done, as they all do,
With muscle, sweat.... and beers.
...

Six years we've lived in Mexico,
And now it's time to go.
We're headed back to Washington,
Where winter brings the snow.
...

They called us Landing Force, Air Support
Control Unit One:
Marines who knew the difference 'tween
A rifle and a gun.
...

In nineteen hundred twenty four,
Because our father died,
Our mother had to go to work,
And swallow family pride.
...

One Joseph 'Rudy' Julian,
A World War Two Marine,
Was killed on Iwo Jima in a
A most heroic scene.
...

The day John Kennedy was shot,
He bowed his wounded head...
His wife embraced him frantically,
Her lap, a martyr's bed.
...