Ode to Ties

On days like this teenage boys
often give us the finger.
Why? Because we drive slowly?

Or because we boast about our past
as if it were the only casino
in Atlantic City?

For us, respect doesn’t come
from jeering at the old,
from smoking the biggest toke

or from drinking alcohol
that could leave a liver
spotted like a trout.

We come from a time
when a necktie and a good job
meant something.

When those we looked up to
never went anywhere without them:
Jack Benny, Dick Gregory,

and the Blues Brothers as loyal
to their ties as George Burns
was to his cigar.

Bow ties accompanied us to weddings,
somber blue ties mourned our losses,
gold and silks swung with us in Vegas.

Yet today ties hang sadly
in closets, martyrs to moths
like their peers — the Italian suits,

the tuxedos, the dapper hats.
Who will sing our eulogy
when our last tie is lost?

Bob Bradshaw is searching for a hammock to spend his retirement in. His poetry has appeared in Apple Valley Review, Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Loch Raven Review, Pedestal Magazine, Stirring, and many other publications.

Bob has also written about socks for Dodging The Rain. You can read that poem here!