There I was
Drinking on the bench
Minding my own
When this black woman
Rather young if not pretty
Comes and talks to me.
Her hands are
Tattooed all over
Up to the wrists,
Not her face
Body I don’t know
Just the hands
Tattooed like a beautiful
Work of art.
“Why just the hands,” I ask.
“I was at a wedding,” she says
As if that would explain everything,
“But it ain’t gonna last.”
“Nothing lasts,” I say.
She laughs
Shows me her hands
Let me touch them
And I can imagine those hands
All over me
Understanding
Not judgemental
Soothing.
Then she has to go
Of course.
I look at my bench
Someone had carved a heart
In the wood.
Old story I guess.
Tag Archives: Drinking
Keeping honest
I drink beer, a lot of beer
And lots of beer on funky nights
In the morning, my beer shit
It’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki
With all due respect
To Sake and Lemon Sun.
People offer me wine
Or spirits
I usually stick to beer
I explain that with beer
I never lose control
No blanks
Where you wake up
Somewhere
Not knowing
How you got there
With beer I always
Find a way home.
But that’s not why
I like beer
I like its bitter taste
It reminds me
Of myself when I was a
Poor young fuck
In poor part of town
And beer, bad beer but lots of it,
Was the key to elsewhere.
It still works though
When on my bench, drinking
Still poor
Still looking
For elsewhere
Above ground not too high
Sometimes Line 9 is elusive
Especially late at night
Still have to go home though
So I was in an Uber cab
Same direction but above ground
Where the sun shines
I was coming down from Paris’ Pigalle
Where drinks and whores are cheap
And good company
Uber is on the pool shift
So we drive some
And pick up two kids
With tennis rackets and good education
Paris is funny that way
Funk and sadness are close neighbors
To financial ease and despair
Anyway
There’s a messed up in the electronics
Kids are going to Pigalle
With a big smile on their face
Sure
I can understand why
But Pigalle is where I’m coming from
Going the other way
Uber driver is embarrassed
Checking his phone beeping madly
Kids are cool
And laugh it out
They have the night in front of them
They’ll walk if needed to
Uber dude promises to take me home
Is sorry for the wasted time bla bla bla
Offered me a bottle of water
It started to rain
Couldn’t even smoke in the damn car
Mickey and Daisy, a lose-lose situation
I was in a sorry bar in Orlando, Florida, drinking beers, minding my business. I was pounding on the drinks because I knew there’s no tomorrow. Then this guy next to me felt he needed to talk. I didn’t care.
He soon told me he was working for Mickey or the NBA or whatever.
Stories 