He wiped dirt on dusty jam jar tumblers.
Doled out shots and stories of the one time
he met Nixon, some political bullshit
meet and greet, and refused to shake his hand.
The time he spent on the reservation,
chewing existential thoughts like they were
peyote skins. We sat, entranced, soaking
in well-soaked sermons on society.
“Gotta break through that glass ceiling. Break glass.
Free yourself from its choking hold. Free
load. Loaded guns won’t bring equality,
save the world — it’s peace signs and picket lines,”
rang his oak pulpit of spirits and ales.
Our congregation lowered our heads
in reverence, toward our dewy, amber pints.
Behind the bar, tomes weighed down his shelves
with their dog-eared, thetic purpose.
Written by men idolized and outcast
and rarely loved. Their names heavier than
their thread-bare paperbacks. Marx, Kerouac,
and Salinger. A trine of prophecy
and vision, fathers of a movement to
“Beat the system, fight back, and fuck the Man.
Brandish against brands, the Man is Media.
Question authority, the Man is your Mom.”
We talked of those who trespassed against us –
the Faustus who climbed high ladders to reach
the Apple™ with which corporate snakes beckoned.
He spoke to the weary and the restless.
We were the disciples. Like Zooey, Che,
and the man who’s breath rattles with the cup
of change he shakes each night outside the bar.
We praised that great American Spirit™,
whose filtered fire soothed our hoarse voices.
We toyed with our damp beer bottle labels.
The bartender pulled out his pack and brought
another cigarette to waiting lips.