A man adrift in a small bar.
(with apologies to Stephan Crane)

A man adrift in a small bar.
A drunk peering over the rim of a bottle.
Punk haircuts rearing lashy dark points.
The near whine of stale lovers.
				The beer is cold.
				
The incessant raise and beat of the music
and growl after growl of conversation.
The speaking, dark, repeating, endless.
The other half-contemplated
			
				His heart is cold.
				
The seats are in the center of The Bar, 
Laughs may be turned to brays
crashing down through the air,
because of a gesture of interest toward the man.
Laughs may become grey ashes, 
die with a cough and a whimper.
Amid the tulmut of the silence
and the cruise of the lost, 
A Bar full of lonely people.

Now drunk, tighter than a funeral drum, 
staring into inky bottomless glass.
A reeling drunken stare, and no stare.
A pale hand sliding from the polished bar.

				The floor is cold.
				
The puff of a cushion imprisoning air:
a face kissing the awaiting date,
a weary slow sway of the lost hand,
under the shoe, the spike-heeled shoe, the shoe.

				The blood runs cold.			


(sometime in the 80's)