Darkest moonshine corner
of any ordinary bar room
lit up in the flower-rose glow
of red neons and stove-like
warmth jukebox
unless the live
bands play stageside.
God knows why they do it
unless it simply be some
quaint imitation of
musics listened to for
years,
so old hats remember the
younger skulls and night
thrum hums with it and
in all honesty, I’ve seen and
heard it all so many god damn
times that I lean back bored
staring at the bartime
clock at the east
wall near the walk-thru cooler.
I think I’m the only one drinking
coffee at this bar, coffee since
whiskey proved to be nothing
but a devil kill in my guts
and beer the swollen tic
fill up, can tell its cheap
coffee state filtered victory
coffee Folgers
maybe and God only knows what’s
really in it. Thankful as hell
for it tonight though and the
aroma coats
the entire bar room.
I reflect on other things going
on in the midwest tonight under this
restless breathless sweaty-summer
moon
all nude juicer strip joints,
mullet head bar fight in
some shoe box bar shack
in the bug screech ditch mud
night
snakes of trains rumbling hooting
off in dark distance,
hundreds if not thousands of
dark empty churches and swell
of dusty hymnals and rice paper
rotting of countless King James
bibles.
Husbands beating wives, wives playing
wheel of fortune manipulation games
with their husbands, dirty faced
kids under old blankets this
hot night perhaps a thin sheet
over their tiny bone shoulders
beings how the dark has
swallowed us all deep
in dark heat
warped blink smear
of stars.
- - - - - - - - - - -
(June-July 2013)
