A Day's Drinking in the Beautiful South of France

Waitress in a French Cafe


Afternoon French Cafe
dark-coffee-comfortable and warm
like her skin
stretched smoothe, perfect and thin
on her languid-long limbs
wafer-wisp sultry,
exotic -
words can't begin.....

two boys at the counter
sip but don't taste
the drinks they ordered
when they came in
to stare

but they hardly dare
and drink too fast
dazzled no doubt
as I am

They shuffle out
tales between their legs
for telling later

the other waiters smile
knowingly.

This waitress dreams herself
in magazines and music videos

she doesn't know
she's an oil painting




News

I take a drink in the afternoon
and time to be on my own
two things I'm not used to

I'm trying to relax
and the wine takes care of that

Lately I've been wondering,
will it ever happen
it's just been getting further
and further

away

Today was the last day
I ever thought it might
(though I seem to have a future in drinking alright)

then the phone rings
long distance because I'm abroad

I tell her to keep it short
she says 'You're in'

Is this the way
that something good begins?



PINK FUZZY SWEATER

Soft breasts,
soft eyes,
soft hair

she's just sitting there
across the bar
looking

I know
I'm supposed
to wonder

and I do




DRINK

drink helps with this shit
taps you on the shoulder and says
'you've got something.
You just don't know
what to do with it.
Write it the fuck down -
that's what you do!'

And I think
'funny - I thought I already knew that?'

DRINKING ALONE


The rain was unexpected
vertical and easy
to hide from
even beneath shallow awnings

but the yellow yawning light
from a stray bar
called me to shelter
from the greater storm

settling on the warm cool
of a solitary bar stool
I decided to forget
that I no longer smoke cigarettes

I bummed one off the guy beside me
and inhaled my past
like a dream I'd forgotten
I own.

drinking alone has its compensations


THE CATCH 22 OF LOOKING

When I was young
I couldn't see
anything
or anybody else

I was too busy looking
at me
and wanting
other people to

now I'm looking harder
and I see
everybodly else
wanting to be looked at

but not by me