Thursday, December 4, 2008

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.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home