Forget the nights we walked together drunk,
Like strangers, thru the whirling downtown streets
After dancing to the wail of honky jazz and
Sitting on cold concrete stage, passing round
Bowl of grapes, whiskey flask, under full
Bawling moon cradled by starless sky immense,
Talking of the dead writers who haunt our dreams,
And the glamour girl, martyred, whose sultry gaze
Haunts your studio walls.
Forget the sunny days driving sweaty hours,
Miles and miles down clanging, banging back roads
To bask on deserted sandy blanket beaches,
Wading out into cool waters, the ground spongy,
Loose between toes, the pure shallow lake
Stretching to hill-marked horizons.
Forget the rainy nights, late coming over, a few
Quiet knocks at your lonely, expectant door,
Climbing creaky crack hardwood stairs,
Sinking into soft chair, with bottle of wine
Brought specially at your request, under
Stained lampshade light watch in wonder, delight
As you bring another blank canvas to life, electric.
Forget the gut rot, the hangovers, the rendezvous’
With Fate down blind back-alleys where
Shifty-eyed barflies congregate to bullshit
Sly, dark girls in candy-colored dresses.
And forget that last night sitting out under patio roof,
Feeling the first sad chills of fall, cool, chatting up
Hot shot hipster guitarist all dressed in leather,
Local young poet, sullen, beat, starved and beared,
High school geek, grown but still the gawky grin,
With jovial old man claiming to be great great grandfather.
Drinking too much and, still, drinking more,
Time continues to tick, the countdown until
Those bar-beating hacks you wait on,
And wait on, demanding their orders,
They take you away—forever,
Into the night.
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