Let me tighten your brains, he would say,

I’ll give you a wallop, this way he would play.

Memories of a man, a dear and wise soul,

Italian all the way, left and went away some time ago.

A player of the cards, a trick or too win the game,

He worked in the shipyard, hard at it everyday.

Born in nineteen eighteen, Louis John Cordischi,

Remember with me, grandpa Louie,

He has a home in heaven, shared with loved ones today.

As I write these words of a man far away,

I see his face and his smile, his voice heard by me.

Keith Garrett