Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Luis Mdáhuar Aug 2014
Ruddy's was the place to be on Wednesday nights, cheap drinks, free hotdogs and the graceful presence of Times Square hookers late at night, what a wonderful scene, marines hookers and the best jazz juke box inn manhattan, rowdy and something almost always happened, better than life. I was a young man in a strange country, had my fists tested in FLA and Brooklyn for stupid prejudices on my behalf and others, words hurt only those who do not know their meaning and root. There was a black man sitting next to me, quiet and still, a true barfly, he turned and said;
- you are not from round here-
-  no - I said -I am from Mexico -
- you don't look Mexican, but let's go with it, I don't look African American either-
- r you from the south?-
-Georgia, as they call it -
-well, I've worked in FLA and met some rednecks, Cubans, blacks, but almost no Chinese-
-you mean yellow-
-or *******-
- or ****, you know men, I prefer racism down south, over there the distinction is cut loose clear, we don't like each other, but here, men I tell you, you wannanother beer?-
-sure men-
-Girls just wanna ******* cause I'm black, you know, to be cool and ****-
-yeah, Jewish girls wanna **** white Gentiles, different reasons same goal-
-I hear you, here it's all about being fashionable, but deep in the pit it's all fake as a 10 dollar coin-
  We kept at it until Beth started a fight with another ******, they were calling each other **** I've never heard.
Insults can bring people together like butter and rye, you just have to know.. Modern morals are all about selling and obeying.
Cornwallis Inn,
Gothic Stone With
Marble Floor Ways,

A Small Lounge Area
And A Bar Alongside.

Road Weary
And Thirsty
We Belly
Up To The Trough.

A Drunkin' Patron
Pulls Up A Stool,

Too Drunk To Even
Pay Attention To The ****** Gestures
Or Our Body Language.

He Overstays
Any Sort Of Welcome
That I Would Have Given Him.

I Told
The Barkeep
I Was From Town
But Haven't Been Here
For Decades,

That When I Had Left,
The Town Wasn't More
Than A Ghost Town
In The Making.

That The Land
Of ***** And Orchards
Would Dwarf The Town,

Making It Only
A Spot On The Map,
Like The Stain
Left By A Barfly
On A Hot, Hot Day.
Andrew Siegel  Apr 2012
Barfly
Andrew Siegel Apr 2012
When last I left you sitting here
alone with my lukewarm beer
You told me I was charming
told me scars were ****
and I felt a little nauseous
but I listened anyway
can you order a beer
so the next time I see you
I'll forget I saw that fly
on your ear? Really? Great.
Whats that?
You're drinking to forget
the ***** on my boot?
and your old man
who had the master plan
which is he on now?
b? no z? can you count?
you want to forget him
and you want to forget me
like a peppermint wrapper
cheap and negligible
that you carelessly toss
away
Mark C  Jan 2013
Barfly
Mark C Jan 2013
Dapping on the surface
Trailing a wake of
Rehashed hard luck stories
Mis-spent dreams and
Might have beens
Heedless that he is out-depthed
He holds to his line
And works the bar

Tied by a master
Plumage plucked to order
Starling blue, sparrow dun
Two fine threads
Gold and black
Crosswound, tied off
Sealed with honeywax -
Stealthy weapon of deception

He feels the shifting currents
He reads the weather-gauge
Spring tide, autumn flood
Both echo in his veins
Gnarly and half-sodden
The old fly baits his game
Past his best, yes - but
Potent all the same

*The fish are wary
But the fly is patient
Henrietta Tiarks: *"A gentleman is a patient wolf".*
Jacob Sykes Oct 2013
The Wall Walker
and smooth talker
he, being a ticked off ****** with a knife,
is mostly mole faced
but with an incredible grasp on spacial relations
mysterious mister stalking the barfly's and time flys
endangering a species just for ***** and giggles
the great google hooligans pace rapidly
back and
frothy beer
drowned down by the river kawaii
BARFLY LIMERICK

There once was a fellow from Lauglin
Who went to the bar once too often
He thought he was cool
‘Til he fell off the stool
And ended up in a pine coffin.
ljm
David Williams Apr 2013
He enters looking bedraggled, tired and worn out, his skin like vellum, blank and pale.
Lifting his eyes to catch their gaze he gives a slight nod to acknowledge their presence.
He scans the room as he would a poem seeking an indent that leads to a quiet corner.
A half-lit light casts a shadow on the flock wallpaper, ink stained.
He sits hidden from view, away from plagiaristic eyes. Head In hand
Scribbling while listening for a new word, a muse sings, emanating an un-heard
Beat that guides his rhythm while searching for that elusive vowel. On the floor
Is a scattering of pencil shavings and broken lead, frustration at the loss of an adjective.
The half rhyme squeezes like a tourniquet on the brain…
Frustration runs high as enjambment slips off the page and gathers in reflective pools.

The Lay Pastoral reads an Elegy to the passing of Sir Rondeau Redouble, he lead a very lonely life ascending and then diminishing becoming less Didactic, the Footle holds a Lanterne for the loss, while the Limerick found it quite humorous.

At the bar a Stanza of poets gather, disciples of Villanelle, and regale of their latest triumphs in Women’s Quarterly. Then silence falls as Suzette Prime performs her latest Burlesque she is in good Shape. The Epulaeryu’s compare their Diamante while eating their babba ghanoosh. At the pool table the movers and shakers decant opinions on the latest ‘form’ something to do with A,E,I,O,U…Acrostic looks it up and down looking puzzled, Blank verse remains silent,

They dissect, analyse the entrails, the faint hearted feel a little Grook. The atmosphere is tense. Verbs drift like dust in the light, causing confusion, they mop their brows with a tired senryu. The haiku’s have little to say on the matter…

A Quintain of intellectuals quietly sit, the Sicilian sipping slim line Monoku’s (no ice) hoping for a Couplet before the end of the night. On a stool sit’s the barfly spilling his Bio over the counter top exposing an Ode-ious life, metaphorically speaking. On stage the hottest group in town… Chant Royal and the Syllables… singing their latest Sestina it reached 39 in the hit parade, the notes drift across the room resting on the floor congealing into a poet-tree fountain…they feel at home as the last act MC McWhirtle enthrals with his latest Ballad…the barman Ric Tameter calls time, the evening is a Rap. The club is Epic…


© 27/3/2013
Carson Hurley  Jul 2015
Barfly
Carson Hurley Jul 2015
I made a friend
as I drank alone.
I watched him
and he watched me.
I pitied him
and I know he pitied me.
he's barely a life
yet I am the lowlife.
They say the flies
go to ****,
I guess I know
what that makes me.
Harry J Baxter Feb 2014
We were clean. Pure.
Trekking from pine needles to sand
time slipping away from
the mountainous routine of
laughter and tears smeared across cyberspace
when I was younger
my Mother told me
that when the people we love die
you can still see them
the brightest stars breaking through the night sky
we were wandering away from smirking academia
clawing our education from
the comedies and tragedies of early mornings
calm like the kiss of diamond tides
and long nights
weighed down with thoughts and drugs and alcohol
shutting off each night
on each sunrise
drifting with nomadic intentions we
raged for rage’s sake
on green lawns with signs painted
dig deeper into the blazing structure,
the momentum is shifting,
and the Kingfisher is watching
proclaiming from mountaintops
that killers hunt these city streets
with a pocket full of bad ideas
the prey a sparkling barfly
clean and holy beneath a neon color palette
potential squandered in a scream of confusion
knowing that not every leap
is a leap of faith
magikoopa ecto1  Jun 2014
Barfly
magikoopa ecto1 Jun 2014
There’s a stranger out there
peering out with a blankless stare
staggering stumbling
incoherent mumbling
this not at all expected
from a woman of your caliber
you're somehow injected
intoxicated with an empty flask of liquor in your grasp
primordial lust and lack of inhibition
still, out of curiosity you listen
you lend an ear that cannot hear....

you seem to be interested you seem to genuinely care
good luck to you , you gentleman, you
on your night of sin
surely nothing good can come of this
oh well bartender, some more Gin!

— The End —