Piano Bar in Xanadu

Five o'clock

shadows from buildings lengthen

down the greying thoroughfare

seen through panoramic plate glass

like in the painting "Night Hawks".

Dots of customers at isolated tables...

this is their heaven...quiet sound

of Steinway, ash tray on top, 

in front of the Player...

pencil thin mustache memorial..

grooves in the face sagging

like pickup lines over uttered.

He's reached his nirvana

in the echo off the walls

of sentimental songs that

never will go retro...

show tunes whose ancient joys

dribble away in tinkles,

perfected like aged beef,

alcohol the fixer on a cracked masterpiece.

This is not a dive found in a tour book.

It's a landfill of broken spirit done up real neat;

hospice for tuxedoed corpse pretenders,

a perfect denouement deliciously wondering

in precious gift of moment before

invisible curtain falls like a shade.

This moment; "What happened?"

seasoned with sweet pangs

amped up by hazy interior expanse

of pregnant and aborted silences,

eight bar phrases pull the trigger

of mind clicking on empty dream

chambers, ghosts of memory...

a one time glimpse of paradise.