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William Mcintosh Mcintosh Poem
“Four dollars a shot,”
marched from the bartender’s mouth -
each syllable carried the clanks
of Herbie’s Rhodes – jutting like
glacier crags in swells of desert-base.
They carried the smoke curling like
a silver chain draped around a neck,
and the bulges of slurred blurbs.
The words seeped from the regular collection of
the blood-sweet odor of smoke –
not the bartender.
I understood the bar, but I didn’t know what he meant.
The four dollars rustled out of my wallet
and crinkled on the table like
brittle leaves popping back into form.
The sap-colored whiskey
plunked on the bar,
and hummed a sharp
alcoholic song.
Masked, the bartender noticed
an obtuse heap of slurs that
rumpled his skin into a smile.
His shoulders flipped,
and he was swept into
the patterned shrub of sensation.
He was now an indeterminable piece in a clouded order.
I swilled the amber,
and stumbled through links of smoke
until I spilled out
into the violent protrusions of the quiet evening –
like sails glaring on a sun-crushed sea.
I still can’t figure out what that four dollars was worth,
or what the bartender said to me.
Copyright © William Mcintosh Mcintosh | Year Posted 2007
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Details |
William Mcintosh Mcintosh Poem
The white sun flared through,
wrapped its melting-gold fingers
around window trim and clutched walls.
It was reluctantly dipping
into the horizon of wood, like
a drowning man flailing
his grip through the water’s tip.
A sweet-oak smoke billowed from the grill
and wove a grey veil around
quiet slopes of light.
The river of my drink plunged me
into the stool in front of the bar-tender.
“The only thing I think I believe
is that I don’t believe in solipsism.”,
I flung between chimes of glasses
and muted murmurs from a ball-game.
I slumped over to the side and
glanced at myself in the mirror
between bottles of alcohol glinting
with wisps of white hair.
The curve of my cheek-bone
hung the flesh-flag of my I.
I liked it this time.
And it rippled in the breeze from my smile.
The sun was losing it’s golden grip.
The smoke-veil unraveled
and furled into the descending glare.
There was absolutely
nothing I could do about it.
Copyright © William Mcintosh Mcintosh | Year Posted 2007
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Details |
William Mcintosh Mcintosh Poem
“Excellent. Thank you.” - My hasty
gratitude sliced through my tongue.
“Excellent. Thank you.,” She mirrored,
with veiled mockery.
“Been on this earth for twenty three years,
and that’s the best I can do.”, I impulsively
announced - struggling through the silence
of Jim Morrison and muted mumbles
in the café. My voice was searching,
like a stray, blind bird,
to nest in someone’s ears.
I plunked into my chair.
My cup grazed the glazed wood,
and hushed to a perfect pose.
The white bellowing in through the windows
surged through like a wall of frigid wind.
It was imprisoned by the dam of depth,
where golden ceiling lights poured graphed
arcs down pine walls.
A jungle of empty utterances mingled
with the breeze of music to sound a unified silence.
The servers’ steps were patterned in an infinite loop.
Stragglers would tumble through the door
to be swathed in eternal stillness.
The air, stained with the dirt smell of coffee,
soaked ever deeper into the fabric;
never spilling beyond it’s net.
The whole café was solidified as immortal.
The only things that die at Starbucks are inevitabilities.
Copyright © William Mcintosh Mcintosh | Year Posted 2007
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