Long Nostalgiawine Poems

St. Adrian's, 1971

Saloon
Squeezed between office buildings
On lower Broadway
Desolate and out of the way
Faint neon sign marks the place
For the downtown art scene.
Poetry readings on Sunday afternoons
Only the regulars show up 
Invited or not 
Some mount the stage and  
Recite a piece or two 
To scattered applause.

The beat goes on
Summer nights fly by
No Sunday readings now
It’s Saturday and it’s a different place. 
Crowd mingles
Three deep at the bar
A/C working on overtime while
Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On plays
Jazzy and soulful
A monster hit
To no one’s surprise. 

A hangout for anyone 
Bodies waiting to meet
An Agent.
Or maybe a Publisher.
Or a Rep.
Anybody. Somebody. Anyone know somebody important?
Naw, this ain’t the place
This is St. Adrian’s
A place for  
Artists.
Writers.
Sculptors.
Working class dreamers.
Pretenders and losers.
Wannabes.
Lost children and
Casual loners on the prowl.

Carol, alone in a corner booth
Glass of white wine in her hands
On the rocks of course
Smiles at everyone like a Mona Lisa.

Jack Micheline 
Bronx’ original Beat
Wrote River of Red Wine in ‘58
Manuscript under his arm
Waits for someone 
To buy him a drink 

Elaine, beautiful in a peasant blouse
Scent of musk oil like a halo
Motions  
To the young men 
Who watch her hands 
Move like deadly weapons

Stan’s a photographer. Sleepy, one night 
Left his equipment in a car 
Morning arrives and 
Broken windshield screams 
You’ve been robbed.

Junior, a sculptor, needs rent money for a walkup in the East Village 
Otherwise he’ll live on someone’s couch
Gil does commercials 
Until he finds an old lady
Then Hollywood here he comes 
And Glenn is a writer with lots of ideas 
But no paper and no place to go.

No one asked what I did for money
Or where I lived.
I was accepted with a simple sitdownhaveadrink.
Sometimes there’d be ten of us 
Squeezed in a booth or
Around a table
Talking and talking.
Any topic not important
Just to meet and forget for awhile 
The nagging loneliness and rejection.  

It’s well past midnight
Chairs scrape the floor and there’s an echo in the walls 
Left behind are empty glasses and stale beer
As the place begins to empty out.
We leave
Hitting the still streets
Looking for a cab
Or the nearest subway
But before we do
We promise to meet again.