A clothes hanger
                   clutches a line
                   of paper lanterns
                                     lighting my next step
                                     on streets my shoes stick to
                                               from wheat beer
I hear the ‘Pit'                      coursing through cracks  
                    &                        inebriating aged clay bricks
                    ‘Pat”
                     of rain on rooftops
                                   & falsely take it
                                       for Charlie Parker's
                                                     'Hot House'
but it’s 2am near Tulane
  & they’ve graduated to
                  tracks from Tremé;
                  Brass jazz & barflies;
                  Mad Hatters & Mademoiselles
                                     dancing barefoot
                                     in the French Quarters
                                            under red fluorescent lights
                                               under cloud-covered stars;
She gets them drunk off dance & song;
Guaranteed to make locals
                      late to last call;
                      shows them back-country gems,
                        the beautiful ruins known only
                                                      by bayou gals
                                                            & city folk
outside,                                              in search of sirens
where the ceiling's missing,
dancing 'till their bodies taste like rain

They 'crash'
                    &
                       'splash'
                                       .....breaking through worn wooden floors
                                                          ­           & cracks in plaster walls
lead by the ‘Pit’                                                     back to the street,
                        &
                      ‘Pat’
                              as other strange drops join the dance,
                              descending from skies to rooftops;
                                                     Finding lower highs
                                                     in search of Bourbon Street
                                                          ­          lost & looking
&                                                                 near Tulane at 2am
my blue suede shoes are dying of thirst,
                                 stuck upon each step;
                                          lacking direction
&                                         looking for jazz
waiting to drown
      in the 'Pit'
                 & 'Pat'
                     & splash
                         of this daily rain dance;
                         Lose myself in this listening
                         as dreamers do
                             on the streets near Tulane
                             At 2am;

You watched me, raised me, taught me how to use
my hands to make a fist and give massage.
Your home became a haven from abuse
that I endured, that you left home to dodge.
The friends, the barflies buzzing round your flat
would treat your old-soul brother as a peer.
They answered patiently the questions that
the man-child asked to understand his fear.
We were so close until the very end,
when Mom would live with me and not with you;
she wasn't sure you had the strength to tend
her, watch her wither as she chose to do.
I never thought when leaving then that I
would never hear your voice before you'd die.

An empty bar,
there's something magical
about the concept.

No drunkards
spilling cheap beer
on themselves,
no ***** barflies
leaning against
bathroom stalls.

No rough necks
or the doomed
preaching their
individualistic sermons.

One can find peace
in an empty bar.
A zen like state,
drinking beers
to achieve
the aim of
tantric Buddhism.

Spring sweeps over Canton
in slow moving waves of sun-
branches on the few carefully
planted trees begin to bud
beautiful white petals,
clean and spotless against
dirt tinted brick
and unwashed windows,
shedding blankets of soft
confetti on hybrid cars
and BMWs crowded into
spots on the street sides.

The warm weather brings bees,
mosquitoes, and morning joggers
who smile at each other as they pass,
their dogs running beside them.
They stop to smell
the patches of weeds that have
sneaked between cement panels
on the sidewalk, but are quickly
****** ahead as their owners’
heart rates begin to fall.

The jogging trail is tracked
in old houses ******
over like aging women.
They soak up the warmth
like a sponge, their seventy
year old walls continuing to peel
old asbestos speckled paint
beneath brand new wall paper
and paneling.

Bankers and law students,
doctors and nurses,
barflies and models
hunt them like injured
pray on a mountain top-
so few to feed on
that when one emerges,
hundreds dive for the ****
but only the ones with the
fattest wallets win,
and can sink their teeth into
the tender taste of
prime real estate,
a thin slice of Hip in
this burgeoning yuppie haven.

~~~
Tis a gladness found in sadness
mostly pleasure
wince of pain
From an odor round the barroom
none the boys could e'er explain
Like a billowed line of washin'
after gentle fallen rain
Tis the wail of spring befallin'
on a barfly
oh ... the shame
~
Lo
there's homework
I'm the tender
to a list of things that broke
Ere the boss be sharing surely
words no poet ever spoke
Lazy good for nothing ******
paint the fence and fix the gate
You want a pint ... you must be kidding
Plow the forty ... 'fore it's late
~
Down the misty path of memories
thoughts of Kelsey's brew appears
In a vision almost godly
round a table rests my peers
And no memory tarries longer
forceful
clearer
sweeter
stronger
than ol' Kelsey pouring liquor at the bar
I sheds a tear
~
Summer sadness tans bare shoulders
to replace the winter's shun
And the kids each day
they greet me ... Morning Dad
YOUR IT ... then run
Lord
I never knew that Heaven
'twas the place beyond my wall
Till I heard my children laugh
while toasting mallows in the fall
~
Though breath of Heaven
washed the aftertaste
of Kelsey's from my life
And forever I'll be holding ... dear
new memories
with my wife
I am angered at the sign
that hangs atop ol' Kelsey's door
. . . NO BARFLIES . . .
. . . CASH RESPECTED . . .
~
Sure
His wife now runs the bar
~~~

Listen up barflies, tricksters and drunks,
People’s lives wasted with heads down the dunk;
What if there really is a land for you and me,
Where the bar is eternal, refills are free.

You may have heard the jokes
Escaping creased lips,
Cheeks scattered with scars
Lives rallied around bars.

But I implore you;
What if the beer runs in a river
And contains something sweet to help along your liver

Bags of peanuts grow on trees
No alley-way dogs crawling with fleas,
No aging ******, the price a humiliating tease.

We of the wasted, the broken; the done
Heaven doesn’t really sound like much fun.
Tennis greens and elegant scenes
Don’t meet our  tastes
For ***** ashtrays
Engine oil and grease;
Gangs of bikers and hordes of police.

When I find that sign creaking in the wind
I’ll indulge in one final binge;
With an ex-wife in Hawaii
A boy out in Leicester (or New Mexico)
A veteran-frazzled brother
And a daughter who doesn’t want to know;
A bank sends love letters requesting my stuff.

The bible urges me clean
I look up to heaven
Doesn’t sound like my scene.

So hear me you wasted, you hardened,
Capillaries burst staining noses red;
Let’s comply to the census
And drink ‘til we’re dead,

Because the eternal bar, the river of beer,
Is all in your drunken head.

That poor little *******
sat at his typewriter
and thought to himself: “What do I write about today?”

It was an odd, off-feeling, thing that he felt.
Sometimes he told people: “It feels like it feels when you are sitting there, reading a book or something and you suddenly have to take a ****. But, instead of the feeling being in your guts, it’s in your brain.”

The problem with saying
that kind of thing out loud
was that the poor constipated writer
always and almost immediately
felt like he was telling people
that he was full of ****
or otherwise a *******,
based upon how it all sounded to him,
and he was sure to everyone else
as soon as the words escaped his lips.

The stagnant little writer
went outside and smoked a cigarette.
He was trying to think
of a new way to think.

He thought: “Most of the time I write
about stuff that happens to me
or the things that I see as I’m wandering
around town.
Sometimes, I make things up, telling stories about characters that I’ve based loosely on people
that I’ve met via work,
or barflies I’ve sat next to,
nursing a beer or whiskey.”

Usually though,
the poor constipated writer
ended up writing about writing,
or standing outside smoking cigarettes,
or sitting in some bar,
next to some ******
who wanted to talk about politics
or religion
or some other nonsense
that wasn’t worth listening to
and then what was that poor
little plugged-up *******
supposed to do?

Well, nevermind.

I bet he’ll just do
what he usually does
and go whine about how
boring he must be as a writer,
how nobody ever gives
a two-penny farting ****
about anything
he has to say.

Then, I can already imagine it, can you?

He’ll go into that cold little room
at the back of his house
and he’ll continue to do
what he’s always done.

He’ll write stories about the streetlamps
and the moonlight.

He’ll write about that girl that he knows;
the one with the strawberry hair
and the thousands and thousands
of freckles.

Then maybe the next day
he’ll write about the old lady
who’s lights got shut off
by the power company
and about how he called
the power company
and said: “Listen here, ya sonofabitch!”
and they turned the lady’s power back on.

But, that poor little constipated
writer is in a place where he feels
like nothing he writes
is worth anything at all,
so he might as well
give up.

Or not.

*

-JBClaywell

© P&ZPublications

Bartender, bartender, tell me a tale
while you sell me a pint of whatever's on sale
-Traditional

Barflies stuck not in amber
but in soft varnish on pine,
steel pole legs scraping the planks:

men bluster in bleary candor
while women lay it on the line.
We at the bar give golden thanks

for this wet and flickering space,
tended by our good mistress
who heals most open wounds...

but not mine. With a tired grace
I slip outside, dissatisfied, listless
under the frozen starless dunes.

I detest the euphemism "making love"
When people just mean "having ***"
As the latter is too often devoid of the former.

Rabbits do not make love. The copulate.
Dogs in heat do not make love. They copulate.
Roosters do not make love. They **** all hens.

Men in bars at closing time are not looking to make love.
Nor are the women nursing their last drink then.
They are looking to have *** with a stranger.

I do not judge the rabbits, dogs, roosters of barflies.
Humans who sate their urges with any willing partner
Have my best wishes for happy, healthy,  STD-free lives.

I only object when they refer to a physical act that is
Engaged in solely for pleasure and devoid of genuine
Affection for the object of their lust as "making love".

If you use others and allow yourself to be so used
And are of legal age, more power to you (just be safe!)
You will have more pleasure out of this life than I.

But please do not defile, defame, demean the most
Important word and most important feeling humans can share
By making it into just another four-letter word.

By all means say making love and make love often,
As there is no greater gift that human beings can share
But please do not profane the term. Enjoy ***. Just call it that.

alien ornithopters filled with pilgrims
sliding into snoring bedrooms
under a buzzing fluorescent moon
hubcap jockeys from artless galaxies
firing bursts of compressed methane
in wanton hypnotic quantities
ended civilization as we know it
the survivors reel in stupor
the land is barren its people wail
our women ******* exclusively
our men drool and **** themselves
except for a number of mathematicians
and barflies who did that anyhow
whoever said exile makes you smart
was a master of trickery and deceit
why did their science get them this far
then break down into useless tin
replacement parts are on the way
OK you can drive it just don't touch Turbo
well he did and became one of the new gods
commanding the involuntary muscle groups
and sundry media of mass communication
Koko the notorious hand sign gorilla
was his consecrated High Priestess
Koko want play peek-a-boo
discovered anarchy all by herself
using those prehensile wiggly digits
to construct a portable explosive device
but permanganate and peanut butter
must be mixed slow and her impatience
was set to fast so it went off in her face
leaving Koko beautiful as Aphrodesia
disarmed by wit charmed by unreason
a miracle of chaotic reconstruction
when all she wanted for her head
was a song and dance tetrahedron
proving that existence is open source
the alien visit had been productive
many messages were left with us
could time have a center
asked the almond eyed pilot peevishly
only peevish for him was rip your head off
and didgeridoo down your windpipe
according to recently extracted data
it looks like we all suffer from
the groping menace of
gambler's syndrome

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon

The yellow stained blinds
Lead to the alley with no breeze. As I watch hookers,
Predictors, victims,
And the other lost cling
To railings drinking what they have.

The women are once again
Ready to feel the pulse of the bar, bleeding red and purple,
The back door open To the swelter. Bob Segar And Stevie
Nicks, Pasty Cline and Elvis.
I laid above the heat blanching the small window with the yellow blinds,
Beautiful and ******.

I stiffed what I could on the rent, pawned what I could,
Cigarettes and coffee,
A piece of toast,
The only meal for the day.
Sometimes a sandwich or a Hostess pie. A burger after
Two days hunger tasted like
Heaven on Earth.

Sometimes running out of smokes, you search the ground for half smoked butts,
Coming up empty.
No soup kitchen where you lived. Survival of the fittest friend.

And I let my poison arrow fly,
Finding it's trajectory through juke joints With women and music.
You lean into the bar, and the
Glint of the mirror provides the harsh ambiance to the racket inside the Black Rail Lounge.

You rode its tide to the one room above with the yellow stained blinds soured by
Still air and stale clothing.
And the small window let's
In yellow light and little air.

And you must rise this day
And go to work.
But you cannot rise from the bed. You can only groan
As the room spins, and shut
Your eyes to the bloated morning, with hot plates and coughs from other roomers down the darkened hall.
And the Black Rail beneath
With Janis Joplin and Fleetwood Mac, and the steady beat lulls you insane.
And you cannot rise to the task at hand.

But you must.

Marshalling your forces to
The bus and the El down
The ghetto streets of Chicago.
Past tenements and junkyards, hock shops and winos taverns, where you made rubber plates for box stamping. And the winos And barflies line the taverns along Skid Row. Mostly black,
All poor.
Beautiful and ******.

And the hand of God reached down touching my ravaged soul.
Lifting me in Love.
Beyond the Black Rail and the one room. I've since drank an ale on this first night of vacation, watching
The nightfall to sounds in the meadow, As the first firefly
Lights my Window in a time of Passion and Passing

Dreaming doubters of unheard words,
A wind in the trees has startled the birds,
And insects cower from cold in the grass,
But the barflies at least have beer,
And nothing to fear till the midnights past.