how I spend my bar time

freewrite w/a corpse *
… for Mark Hutchins, still alive


our world
is ending, I’m pretty sure

enduring some generic covers band
@ some tacky R. north racket

$9, 4 oz. glass of piss
plus tax (still, I tip, ex-barkeep)

who will write the next
Last Picture Show? & who

will find it
& where

in the ethers of
some world-wide net cast

to the millions, seen
by nobody

(my old guitar buddy, Mark
cld rock it out, left-hand

& upside-down, fuzzy on booze
& put it straight to say

too much cologne, get me
outta this place, where

whips & chains
compete for space

in a dirty room

(Mark, I miss you. The moon today
arose red & oversized

behind the lake. I went out
w/old friends

from collegetown &
yr. name came up &
shit, I really think this

is it, I mean
all there is

))



to hang up the rock
& roll shoes

for middle-age, I’m fucking
deaf.




*(note -- corpse: a poem, or part of a poem, constructed from pieces of other poems. The ‘corpse’ fragments of this poem are italicized.)