The coffee cups are *****
But it’s the cleanest way
To drink whiskey here.

The barman lost half his right fingers
To a wood chipper in his early 20’s
And spent the rest of his adult life
Flipping the world off.

He got it down to a fine art
By the time I showed up.
He didn’t smile when I ordered my drink.
He didn’t smile at all.

The jukebox hasn’t changed
For two stagnant decades
And most everyone but the regulars
Are too scared to use it.

It’s the same rotation
Of Elvis,
Muddy Waters,
BB King,
John Coltrane,
And early Bruce Springsteen.

Not a woman in sight
But every song is about them
And we are all here
Because of them.

Certain patches of carpet
Have not seen a crack of light
Since the Berlin Wall fell.

Nothing changes here but the customers-
And that change is incremental at best.
The same filthy etchings over
The same filthy cubicle doors.

The same Cherokee Indian
Smoking a Cuban Cigar
In the heartland of America.

I can’t find myself here
But there is no feeling of loss.
There is no profundity in anything here.
Just squalor

And enjoying one’s squalor.
I think that is what it means
To be truly happy.

Pride
Is it just a noun?
Or is it more.......
Do we all share a common feeling of what pride is and will be?

When I say will be
I mean that in a sense of
Will we ever be prideful?
Will we. As a community ever be prideful
Can anyone answer that?
It’s getting to a point where I don’t believe
That pride exist
Cause the meaning of pride never really seems to sink into the people of this world.
Some may say we are too prideful
Some sort of unthought out insult, that comes when one human being doesn’t agree with the other

Or when a human such as myself
Doesn’t want to the world to think that he she they we
Are less than the people making that claim

I sometimes wonder
“Do prideful people have good posture”
Cause I sure don’t
Someone can walk down a street and not notice a sloucher when you stand tall to everyone else
The height helps too

It’s just a number
It’s just a feeling
It’s just a belief
It’s just a school
It’s just a country
It’s just a person
It’s just a opinion
It’s just me

I’m too prideful
I’m gonna let the world reflect on that
Not that the world has any thought of who I am
Or what I do
Or that the world even cares
I’m too prideful
Let the world think on that