LUIGI, THE UNPARDONABLE SINNER

Father was a connected bookie,

never worked a day in his life.

Young Luigi, protected,

walked a crooked path

side-stepping landslides.

Ran a chop-shop, lit up midnight skies

torching tenements for hire.

Ghost of the "black hand" in his bones,

ice water in his veins, could chain-saw

a victim as if he was cutting lamb chops

in his uncle Salvatore's butcher shop.

Slyly avoided the law till he stabbed

a guy in a fender-bender.

Cold steel bars, a post-doc in crime.

He owned the street, outwitting

motorcycle gangs and the Russian mob.

An urban pirate, unrelenting in his quest for gold.

His only passion a cigarette boat that

outran the coastguard on Chesapeake Bay.

Abusive with girlfriends and kids

left behind in the wake of his womanizing ways.

With custom made suits from Milan,

looked like a self-preening jackal.

Friends and foes watched him glow

in un-distilled arrogance,

The sublimity of evil, till the day

he stepped out of his front door

and took a bullet between the eyes.

Milton P. Ehrlich