My Brain Is A Bartender

Each night begins Donner Party beat,
people hungry enough to eat their kin,
and maybe that’s just the way it is,
all love boiled right down to flesh,
“Thank you for your protein gift,”
our magnetism of fitting need
to thing, hole to peg, electron
flow of life despite declarations
bold of our mastery over dogs,
fish, rocks, and, well, everything
else. We’re meat and predators,
and they come to me like vampires
in a run on Transylvania Blood Bank.
I keep them customering for the tips.
Serve ‘em what they want in ways
they can’t quite imagine, or ever get
anywhere else just like I make ‘em.
Manhattans to margaritas, they come
and come again, so much knowledge
in my fingers, they get thirsty at the sight
of silver shakers dancing in my hands.
They need me to deliver them from all
thoughts of impermanence, and, man,
that crams the tip jar by the register.
You say your life has no meaning?
Well, here! Drink this sloe god fizz!
Your man left you for the waitress
with the Japanese tattoos working
at the Denny’s just off the I-5?
Let me pour you a good man will
find you and tonic. On the rocks.
There’s this bar. There’s the street.
And I deal drinks with no ambition
to truly answer prayers. Call it
a petty crime, but I’m doing life,
so I pay my time the same way
you do. This bar was built here
100,000 years ago, back when
they served honey wine, shroom
urine and masticated ale. Yuck.
They were so goddamned stupid!
Now, I can top off that loneliness
is a mirage martini with a bloom
of lavender flowers! Well stocked
in the storage room, so much so
we’ve been adding outside units!
Right this minute, I could pour you
what you want for years and years.
Hell, you may beg to live with me.
This bar, the street, the drinks...
One day, though, I hope to stop
the serving. Clear this room out.
Wait and feel...in the epic silence
and love and the holy wholeness,
the entire universe unfold in me.