My journey has come to an end,  
A halt in the life we comprehend.  
To death, my friend,  
A favor I wish to extend.  

I wish to live once again—  
Not too long; that would be a pain.  
Just one day, 24 hours to gain—  
That would be a fair bargain.  

"Just what would you achieve?  
What salvation could you receive?"

Don't ridicule me with lies.  
Forget hours—24 minutes would suffice.  
I would show you a life  
Where thousands of lives thrive.  

A life you've never seen,  
One whose end couldn't begin.  
I will show you life so serene,  
Not even found in the Elysian Green.  

So answer my pledge,  
Allow me to cross the ledge.  

Then I'd meet my weeping sweetheart,  
Relive every event before I depart.  
I'll meet my friends at the bar again,  
Encourage one to live, another to laugh,  
Help them cope with the pain.  

And a kiss to everyone I'd blow,  
For the love and care they show.  

Things I couldn't do, I'd do now.  
To nature's gift—my life—I'd bow.  
There's more I wish to say  
About how I'd live, even for another day.

At a bar near Grand Central Station,
Free flowing alcohol and conversation.
The steady sound of champagne glasses clinking,
In celebration of new beginnings.
Strangers drunkenly exchanging digits,
With the hope of a quick backdoor exit.

Bear in mind – as I conjured an image of a bear in my mind,
both indulging in a few rounds at the bar; raising the bar to
dizzying heights, till one of us might succumb to intoxication.

A rather fishy scenario, devoid of any fishy breakfast beneath
the bear's breath, reminiscent of a grizzly confrontation.

Yet, we diligently tailed our cocktails at the counter –
chasing after them without any count of remorse.
For we both loathed the winter that awaited us beyond those
bar doors, devising a scheme to drink deeply enough to drift
into slumber and embrace the idea of hibernation.

I guess that’s what you get when a man has cocktails with
a bear at the bar - only to discover that by the end, I was left
with a solitary bear, while my wallet lay stripped of its treasures,
solitary bare.

(A Christmas vacation vignette)

Lisa and I choppered onto Manhattan island yesterday morning. We’d both felt toasted—so we took naps—and yay! We awoke recharged.

Later that evening, Lisa and I were at the ‘Elsie’ Rooftop Bar, in Manhattan, waiting for Lisa’s boyfriend, David.
Ok, man-friend? More age appropriate I suppose, he’s 27, but that description doesn’t have the same bf slap.
Dave’s a Wall Street M&A guy and they’ve been together for over a year - a future for them seems very real.

Slinky, jazz-like versions of secular Christmas favorites were playing somewhere and it’s a groove I slipped into immediately. We had reservations and I’d misbegottenly hoped for a five-star, breathtaking city view, but the indoor tables turned out to have these uncomfortable, high-backed, bench-like seats that face away from the windows—***? I made a mental note to check website pix in the future. The place is in need of some serious feng shui-ing.

Disappointed, I asked for a side table where there was, at least, a pitiable skyline view and I placed my iPad, volume down, on the table so I could side-watch the Thursday Night football game—hey, I’m not meeting MY boyfriend, ok? As the official third-wheel, I figured I’d need a little entertainment.

After a few moments, a waitress came by and she paused to look us over with a cat-like indifference that signaled she was better than me, better than us really. She was just cooler.
I was delighted—why am I drawn to people who look down on me?
I suppose I need years of psychoanalysis—but who’s got the time?

I glanced at Lisa. We know each other at a cellular level. With a milli-second of lash flutterings and eye dilations, I asked “are you getting this?” And she affirmed that she was. Because we’re cyborgs. A couple of cyborgs.
Just kidding. We’re not cyborgs, neither of us. We wish we were sometimes—think of the advantages, you could complete college in a blink—wirelessly.

Anyway, back to the narrative. The waitress reminded me of when I was starting high school and my mom and I toured colleges, how snooty the Harvard people were, even though I’d been accepted and offered a free-ride scholarship—I mean, shouldn’t we all have been one, big, self-congratulatory snooty-group together?
(Of course, I chose Yale because the people were totally friendly).

“I better get used to it,” I side-bar’d Lisa, who got the reference to my upcoming, year-long, master's program at Harvard—because we’re cyborgs. I handed ‘Laura’ (our snooty waitress was tagged) my Black American Express card, which got her attention, and said, “start a tab please—someone will join us—run a 40% tip too,” I added with a smile. She practically jogged off to get our drinks and hors d'oeuvres and I turned my attention to the game, you know, to catch up.

I love Pro football—it’s not really fall without football—is it? Even though Tom Brady retired. This all goes to say that I’m a pro football ******. Lisa likes it too, though she’s not totally obsessed.

Just after Laura brought us our martinis and ‘poached lobster’ slides, a random, well-dressed man (he was wearing an expensive Brioni, wool linen silk suit), 35-ish, receding mousy-brown hairline, high-ball glass in hand, took the opportunity to stop by and chat. “SO,” he said, in a deep, jolly, ice-breaking salesman’s voice,
“You girls like football?”
I decided that the suit was too shiny for a Brioni—was it a Zegna?—I idly wondered.
“We’ve boyfriends,” Lisa announced, almost apologetically, nodding to include me—in case he missed the plural. Undeterred, he swiveled my way—as if he needed a second opinion—and asked me,
“What do you like about football?” He sounded somewhat condescending to me, so I did what I always do with condescending males—I played the ‘ditzy-girl’ card, “The costumes,” I answered.
“The uniforms,” he gently, fatherly, corrected—before rocking back a little on his heels and sipping his drink.
“And the hats,” I updogged, but before he could digest my reply, David, Lisa’s man-friend, arrived on the scene.
“Sorry to be so late,” he said, giving me a little, jiggly, 4-finger wave, shedding his coat and giving Lisa a smooch on the top of her hair.
The salesman wordlessly took his leave.
It’s a night on the town—let the 3rd-wheeling begin!
.
.
Songs for this:
Diamond Dave by The Bird and the Bee
You Belong to Me by Vonda Shepard
.
.
And a Christmas Playlist - because the big day is 8 days away!
http://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_24.mp3

The hour is an uneasy,
the hour is exasperated,
it paces from one room to another,
taking great strides
to pull me by the wrist
and take me straight to bed.
Not yet,
give me a second a said.
I thirst for a swig
of what this bar has to offer.
Neat! The hour is impatient,
no chance for me to relish
growing old,
no way to feel my insides glycate,
it wants time back,
this itching hour.

as he sat soft beside me.
“Sure,” I said, with ill feeling.
My instinct was not to cross my friend,
I had too few left.

I nodded to the Ape behind the bar and he obliged
with one lemon & ginger and one green tea.
He knows his regulars well
and we know we’d need to wait til later for anything stronger.

“Look,” he said, and I turned to see
a gap and I counted the two teeth that were missing -
no, not missing - he opened his hand
and there they were, both accounted for,
safe and secure in his grey leathery palm.

“Look,” he repeated, (a little slurred this time)
and turned his fist so I could see
the missing skin and the bruises
that gave testimony to his amateur status.  

His ****** grin and wet laughter
shook the silverback back into action
and we got a plate of malted milks.
Like I say, he knows his regulars well
and he’d listened when I told him
where he could get a regular supply,
direct from Staffordshire, in the UK.

“Lo-ok,” he said (more hesitant this time)
and lifted his shirt a little to reveal the knife wound,
replete with knife, buried to the hilt.

“Loo-,“ he started to say, as he slid off the bar stool
taking his tea with him, the porcelain shattering on the stone floor.

I winced – the cups had been a gift
to the Ape from my mother.
‘Why should the chimps get all the best crockery?’ she’d explained.

“I’ll pay for the breakage,” I said
and the Ape nodded his furrowed brow
as he swung round to grab the dustpan and mop.

I drank my tea,
counting off the friends that remained.

A woman walks into a bar,
alone on a Friday night,
daring assumptions,
orders a pint
and gets out her book.
That's it.  There's nothing else to write.
What?  Not clichéd enough for you?

And somehow
My mind goes back to two summers ago
My mind seems to always go back there
I don't really know why
Maybe it was because
I was in love with you
At that time
And I didn't really know why...

I remember sitting at the bar
In Florentine
without knowing a soul,
I looked  across the bar
and I see you there
with your dark skin
your impish smile
and your curly hair,
you smiled to me and offered me a drink
and to hang with your friends
I took you home with me
and we went out for a month
I remember waking up
to the smell of cigarettes,
and קפה שחור חזק-(black strong  coffee)
and smoke flying all  around you ,
I don't know why
but all I think of is you
still all this time later...
I haven't gone back to that home
that I lived in
,two years ago
a city away
for that time in my life,
had so much pain and addiction in it
but I still have so many fond memories of that place
so I think one day soon I'll go back
to the coffee shops in florentine,
to the parks that I used to sit in
and dream about life
to the bars I used to drink in
to melt the pains away ,
to the bar I used to go to ,
when I met you
and to the bomb shelter
that I stayed in
as the bombs flew past me,
yes Israel has been hard
but I forget  sometimes ,
that it also has lots of beautiful memories
in it too,
like meeting you
and your beautiful Ethopian,
frame face and culture
opening my mind
and showing me how dark
racisim can be
and what a beautiful soul
you are,
That race doesn't matter
And that beautiful souls do.
I have learnt so much from you
David
So when I saw the Ethopians protesting this week
About the ****** of a small child,
I remembered you
In my apartment
In Telaviv
That eve,
And how close I felt to you
With your dark eyes
Your dark smile
And your cigarette  breath
And coffee smells.

The cold air hits my lungs,
as the animal in my body
takes ragged breaths
exhaling
vapor and fear
inhaling
a familiar stench.

The night smells like metal,
with the sun now eroding
the starry sky.

There is no time to think of how I got here.
A corroding metal bar swinging in the air
just missing
my head.

Let's raise our glass to the many and the few
and far between two stools waiting at the bar
with contaminated peanuts
for company and an empty
beer mat ready for the happy
hour rush. And only the lonely truly know
hurt only makes you stronger
and the truth of needing
a glass of something stronger still.