Ach, Marx the Spot

Sure it's a cheat not only to blog for the "day" at ten to midnight but also to post something you wrote years ago. All I can do is ask for forgiveness. In the meantime, here's something I should have posted for the weekend anyway, or perhaps never posted ever, as it's a poem from the vaults. This goes out to folks in Zeno's, btw...

BAR SONG

The month’s end and my friends
are down to singles,
their wallets fat and poor,
hungry bulging stomachs.

What can one do when
hands are empty and so much
needs filling?

There’s a song about this
American Reds in their cells sang
before they knew Stalin
was offing heads by the gross.

If someone told them
they would keep singing.

The words are gone,
Stalingrad is gone,
and the beer is almost gone,
but scraping our change
together buys us another
pitcher, if we stiff the waitress,
which we do.

Like the rest of us, she can
drown her sorrows by the glass
after work. What’s one tip
in a night lugging fuel
to fire the forgetfulness of drunks?

We worked hard, too, to buy
ourselves this bitter, this blind.
Unkind as dawn, we are, or
the fearful clarity of light
they throw on us at last call.