Gran Torino Poem by Alfred Ramos

Let me tell you a story
Filled with blood guts and glory
Death, old age and prejudice
No boundaries to pain’s edifice
At war he was a hero
At home he was a zero
Has a heart of stone
But now he lives alone
With a six pack on his hip
His heart bleeding like a slow drip
He didn’t bother
To learn to be a father
Old school all the way
A 72 Gran Torino on display
He lived to work
Never anybody’s jerk
Retired from 30 years in an auto plant
Hoping for some serenity and no one to enchant
But slowly the world has passed him by
More black, more brown, more slant eye
Still he knows right from wrong
It’s the same here as in Hong Kong
When coward gangs seek power and control
He lets them know they are digging themselves a hole
The weak and defenseless look on with a tired eye
Let themselves become victims of a drive by
But their message is misspent
To a man who never tried to repent
In the night he had a plan
Not a knife or gun in his hand
He would defeat his enemy with his brain
Making them believe he was insane
To attempt to take on the entire gang
Yet they listened to his brave harangue
So he reached into his jacket for a lighter
They reacted like any street fighter
Opened fire to stop this threat
As if they were repaying society’s debt
But in the end it would be they who would fail
As each and everyone was hauled off to jail
So if we listen closely to the church bell as it rings
We can hear his eulogy, “I finish things”.