poem of the day 04.11.11

noise

these are the gray april nights
where you give up and sit in the bar
after closing the office again this week

taking phone call after phone call from the boss

and you sit there
catching the dim reflection of yourself
in the bar wood

lost in the gray april night

watching the bubbles in your beer
as jazzy jim dumps dollars into the juke

mccartney and frankie valli songs

jim, who thinks that lucy in the sky with diamonds
was written by wings instead of the beatles

these are the gray nights of april
where there is no salvation and little remorse
for the common life

and there is no use arguing with another drunk

you will be thirty-seven soon

thirty-seven with the boss’ voice
ringing in your ears

you watch the beer bubbles
and think that the boss’ voice will always
be in your ears

for there will always be bosses

and bartenders who are young
who hate frankie valli songs

and turn up the television news
to drown them out

it is a cacophony of sound tonight in the joint

the odd mixture of middle east violence
government squabbling
and walk like a man

these unbelievable, unforgiving
gray nights of april, you think

life distilled to one big mess

and jazzy jim begins to ring the bell
on his ten-speed
as a protest to the loud television

but is doing nothing more than adding
more sound to the slaughter

the young bartender turns off the jukebox in disgust

you hear your boss’ voice over the din
and look around

you sit there in all of that noise

watching the last beer bubbles pop
before taking a drink

think that you might drown
in the nightly news and bells

in jazzy jim pounding the dead jukebox

in bosses and america

and you hate this gray april night

you have your first pull on the beer

the first of many tonight

and you hope to hell
that may is better
than this month seems to be
turning out.