poem of the day 06.27.09

bars

i go to the bars where they
all turn around when you walk in
because everyone who’s anyone is already there
and who in the hell are you
i go to the bars where crowds aren’t welcome
i go to the bars where jazz plays on lonely
saturday nights
as the bartender reads a day-old new york post
i go to the bars that don’t break my bank
where no one is hip because hipness died there
twenty years ago
where the television is god
i go to the bars where that might not be
booze dripping off the wood
i go to the bars with yellow walls and dim lights
where salvation hasn’t visited
where best friends bloody each other’s noses
before buying a round of beer
i go to the bars where there is no hope
and no women unless you bring one with you
i go to the bars that time has forgotten
where they hang christmas lights year round
so no one ever has to take them down
where you better know what you want
before you sit your ass down on a stool
i go to the bars that root for the opposing team
where they hate vegetarians
and people stuffed with intellectual artifice
i go to the bars where they eat plastic bags with
an old jar of mayonnaise
where i’m probably not wanted
where they haven’t bothered to learn my name
where they stare at me strangely
talking amongst themselves to see if i belong
i go to the bars where conversation is an ugly art
where talk means you are drunk
and where passing gas is customary
i go to the bars i wouldn’t step into otherwise
if maybe i’d become a better man
i go to the bars and it’s getting so old
that i hang my head
and pray for another idea
that mother of invention
to saunter up to me
take a pull on my stale beer
slap my face good and hard with her polished hand
then walk out the door with her fine ass
sashaying
in a sunday afternoon breeze.