Waiting for Ian

When Ian sleeps
we sit and drink
Passing cards
and spilling scotch
there's nine beers left
When Ian sleeps
I've got scotch in one hand and Bud in the other
He's leavin' soon
the "FOR SALE" sign states
Wake up Ian
there's nine beer left
I've got a full glass
and a half a beer
Tom speaks of
swastikas in pasta
called pastiska
It's just past 10pm
the walk is just a fence away
don't be scared
It's not a Water Buffalo
it's only our cat

Quadra Island

I’m too weak to talk, too tired to crack open my beer.
Cloth in hand assisting the task
Too weak to think pour and drink and sink a bite into the dog that bit me
It wont all fit so we fight. I win and down it goes
Beer mixed with V-8
I can feel a shit as I drink and sit, witnessing the tide pulling out
The broken driftwood fence cradles the precipice of broken shard
Diesel engines roaring spewing gut smoke and churn
My beer turns to skunk in the sun
My cattail hat shades my sinking face
A floatplane passes then dives like a pelican for fish
Rotten pears soft and brown
Lie atop the ground
Green grasses brown as moss dies
beneath the tire tread sole of my Mexican sandals

Serious Drinkers

Serious drinkers sit at tables
kitchen tables
or drink on the street
drinking repetitively
not on overstuffed pillows
serious drinkers
can't stop once they've started
serious drinkers
have stomach problems
and hemorrhoids
serious drinkers write about
drinking and being hungover
and are belligerent
serious drinkers
are some of my best friends.

Lucky Beer

I'm huddled up to my backpack, moreover; nap-sack, sitting in a cold off-green 3/4 occupied resturant booth. What I mean by 3/4 occupied, is that there is one or two people at each stall. When an elderly fellow of the street pushes along side the red naugahyde covered bench seat. He makes himself at home scooting toward me, pushing me into the corner. In his wrinkled hand he feebly holds a plate of mashed potatoes and cream corn, no meat, possibly he has previously eaten it. He's jabbering on about something of which I have a difficult time translating into fathomable thought. Stealth like, he reaches down near his feet to a partial bottle of Lucky beer and pours a meager amount into a frail plastic cup. He raises the cup to the table to set it directly in front of me. "Buy ya a beer?" I don't know if it was when he said buy or beer, but a couple of half chewed kernels of corn have been spit from his lips landing ever so graciously onto the rim of the plastic cup he has offered me. He holds on the precipice of his eyelid, one cold tear. I contemplate his position on the food chain and the possibilities of catching Hepatitis or something worse even and put back the beer in one go. He winks at me as the tear runs silently down his wrinkled cheek then raises an index finger to his lips ushering me not to say a word.

Writing

Maybe it was my T-shirt, maybe that’s why I couldn’t’ write. The T-shirt black with a work crest stenciled on the right breast side, way too run of the mill. I exchanged it for my favorite old tattered green shirt I had many years prior purchased second or third hand in Mexico, rolled the sleeves to mid arm and glanced at the clock. It showed 10:40am. I knew what I was wishing for; I wanted the clock to display something more like 11:50, an acceptable hour to unlock a crisp bottle of beer unbound to conscience. Beer assisted the pen to scribe. Tom Waits in the background and Bukowski lingered as inspiration. The previous evening I’d been reading his works to initiate rhythm of word.

Circus

Jack stopped to remove a pebble from his worn leather huarache. A boy walked by holding four balloons floating in the calm afternoon breeze, two blue, one semi deflated yellow and an orange one in the center. After removing the pebble, Jack lifted his head to notice her, a Mexican girl, thin, wearing a green skirt short enough to catch sight of her thigh. She looked to be about 16 and was hanging an assortment of laundry. Jack shifted her a harmless smile as a rooster from beneath a red Ford one-ton flat -bed truck darted toward him. Garbage littered both sides of the street and the air carried its fragrance. The circus was in town, Jack had seen the promotional posters plastered on walls and the trucks with caged animals parading the streets; all the local kids were excited.
A boy in long pants and a blue T-shirt came from around the corner to punch another boy in the shoulder as he passed on a pedal bike. The breeze blew the red and white flags that matched the circus tent roof. Jack could hear work going on inside the big tent; although outside not much was happening. Everyone awaited the evening when the tickets would be sold to the anxious local children and their parents.

Black Cat Cantina

Ol' Jim Buoy n' Jack Hammer
down to counting brass tacks
stuffing coat pockets with war buttons
scraping coins from chew'n gum sidewalks
Thirsty-dry and desperate
head'n to Two Bucks
cash in the brass tacks, war medals and
chew'n gum coins
trade 'em for beer
where all the boys drink on Tuesday
Two bucks a bucket
where the buckets are no larger than a pint
The barkeep bleeds the lines into
hand sized buckets
Two buck Tuesdays
the boys have been there every Tuesday
for a decade
Where the buckets are hardly larger than a pint.