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