qwerty

what is is observational from my day
i often wonder sitting here
in front of keys
in front of an empty page

i think through the day
and i can remember only
a hangover
liquid
and another great sense
of fluid
well-lubricated
well-being.

FUCK

FUCK THAT MOTHERFUCKER ILL KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKER
said the man in the black shirt
cowboy boots
cowboy hat.

he seemed so angry and I wondered at what.
I was so happy he was on the other side of the street.

I sipped my beer and stared at my book
avoided the anger and
dreaded conflict
considering how good my day
was going.

so far.

virtue

two bit three bit
one shit floor shit

spend my days drinking more shit
and my mornings wondering why,
shit.

hangover juice coffee work
is my everyday
same day
routine.

I want to break free
and forth and
re-discover this
word called virtue

never found in a bottle.
i think.

$80 bar tab

I'd rather spend 80 dollars
at the bar than
80 dollars at the hip
euro trash store down the street

because the well stitched indian threads
in the H&M shirt might tell a different

more permanent story I would
prefer to live my own

hazy forgotten tale.

$80 bar tab

you can't put a price
on the cast of characters
that rolls through the bar
on a windy cold thursday

you could put an ad on craigs
or on a telephone pole

but not expect the sort of out
of sorts that comes out
on a windy thursday.

a bunch of drunken fools.
drunken bartenders and their
birthday friends and us.

we roll the dice and throw the drinks
and hope that the glasses land booze
side up and we land in the same damn
bar stool again.
the next night.

Bob

makes the place seem lively with
his easy smile and casual demeanor
never letting his problems of
the day spill into the half
spilt drink he is slinging
a model of mediocrity in an
utterly mundane world
a savior of saints slinging
prophecy zen one
spilt drink at a time.

Rich

Rich brings the
house down at
Kowarski's which
is not even a metaphorical statement
because that dude is
sour and broken and beat
and brings you a drink
with barely a smile on his
time weathered face

he does his job
pays the minimum and
cashes his check
sleeps in his lonely
bed with undreamt dreams
of what once was.

Bartender

a bartender is the easily approachable
fully clothed stripper of my
every day drunk existence.
perhaps.

usually with more attitude
and less flesh
and 100% less chance of
giving me a lap dance and
50% less chance of
fucking me but
with 100% more chance of
bringing me a drink on time
straight up
on the rocks
with no water
or bullshit

Bartender

the greatest non
relaationship - relationship
we will ever know a lover
a fighter a soothysayer
a friend who will be there for
the entirety of their 9-5 or 5-2
shift regardless of their
other obligations so long as their
card is punched. and our tip is good.

Giant Eagle

When he came to he was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers. It took him a second to get his bearings. His hands were tightly grasping the stale orange handle of a shopping cart that was presumably his. He was leaning with approximately 65% of his body weight on the cart. He was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers, and past that the dairy aisle.

The trip through the supermarket was mentally walked through in reverse mentally by the man in less than an instant. Kind of chose your own adventure, where you're trying to recall the last 15 minutes of your life.

This was happening more and more often and during the instantaneous recollection of what brought him to staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers he felt a little worried.

He had just looked at the new issue of Thrasher magazine and got a sense of deja-vu, half way through realizing he had leafed through the exact same magazine only days earlier.

Before that, a trip up the cleaning aisle for some dran-o for the fucking toilet that had clogged again that morning via the paper aisle for some tee-pee and tissue paper, all generic, all on sale. Half-gallon of milk and some O.J., Orange Juice on sale, milk was not. Two birthday cards for two birthday boys and before that some fruit from produce.

Bananas. Bananas contain alot of B vitamins and potassium and help keep the liver functioning when you drink a ton of booze.

He heard the clack clack clack clack clackclackclack clickety clack again in his ears as loud as it had been minutes earlier and the muted small talk of the strangers in motion and he felt like he was going to lose it again, the same feeling of being on edge he had while in produce.

3-300 seconds had gone by and he was still staring at the goddamn non-alcoholic beers and the mixers and wondering why the last five minutes of his life had disappeared as soon as he laid eyes on the O'douls, the O'douls in particular.

'The booze?' he thought,' is this some kind of trigger, my brain is so hard-wired to it, that any kind of stimulus puts me into a daze?'

It had been four days since he had a drink and yet here he was, pavlov's dog, losing his mind over the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers.

Neon lights always got him excited.

He pushed his cart back into the sea of anonymity, checked out, and prepared for the next day, same as every other.