"sitting on the wrong side of heaven
sitting on the wrong side of hell,
sitting on the wrong side of everything"

Two truckers talk miles
weight stations,
and *******

as the barmaid coughs up
a sharp,
wet,
smokers laugh,

at the racist joke
an old man tells
while he rolls up a cigarette
cracks with wrinkles,
and upsets

the heavy middle aged woman
feeding dollars into the slot
of a game machine,
trying to beat her own
high scores.

My draft mug sheds frost
into a soggy napkin and
I notice how useless
everything is.

The empty pool table
with a warped stick on it,

the display of snack food
behind the bar
that look old and dusty

The man coming from the bathroom,
coughing as he passes
a twinkling electronic dartboard,
a powered down
Creature from the Black Lagoon
pinball machine,


and a hi-tech jukebox
that will never be used
because the patrons here
are low-tech with no interest
in the cyber-generation's toys.

Too early for happy hour,
too late to go in for work

We are all just waiting,
killing time,
trying to remember
or trying to forget,
and hiding from the world,

Of course,
we all could be drunks,
losers, the **** that lives
in **** town, but the latter
seems more romantic
and truthful.
Eye of the beholder
I guess.