every time the bar fills up
smoke-filled memories drift away
like vacant lots emptied of tots
as the years, they roll on by
but the bastards, the knee-cappers
and whores
return for their dose, lipstick on rims
determined to drink themselves dry
an ex nazi, once talk of the town
real drunken anti Fred Astaire declares
"that through drink we learn who we despise!"
and someone's bloodshot eyes turn blue
a beer glass sails by, a tray, too, with no waitor
like parts of a yacht suspended in motion
till everything hits land and bruises are scattered
and the tray swipes a table with a clatter
while the glass connects the two braincells left
in the man holding onto the floor
just another night of many in my youth
in the bar where I served the ale
where I kissed the Swedish au pair
who came there to be admired
and I surely did
laying her bare on barrels of beer
where I found out a knife in the stomach does not hurt
when stuck into someone else's than mine
and opening a door repeatedly into a head to stop a fight dead
works only if he is not sodden with wine
and I'd wake up at dawn face on the floor
bar door still open, barmaid Tina by my side
shoulder shaken by the old Spanish deckhand
who came to clean up the morning's beer
and clean out the guests we'd invited for the night
the drunkards, fighters, survivors and fools
jesters, drug dealers, torturers, and those whores
of which I was one, the biggest whore of them all
in the pub of my past that never quite lets go
a bar like a boomerang thrown, spinning round and round
where the anti Fred Astair could not dance but only rant
like they used to do in those Munich beer halls
Not dedicated to the Pickwick Pub in Geneva, where much more than described happened most nights.
