One day I was on something of a Tom Waits kick. Sometimes I threw in Nick Cave for flavor. Bottom line, I was surrounded by brooding male solitude for hours on a cold day while I worked on assorted studying stuff. Good music though it is, I wouldn't say it's an upper. So I wrote a poem about the sort of character Waits might write about.
"Tom Waits No More"
First cup
Slow night
Peerless I sit at the counter
One cream
One sugar
Down the hatch
Second cup
Time to time I wonder
Ponder
What exactly went wrong
Woke up one morning
Knew something had shifted?
No.
Though long I had not known it
Slowly had a tarnish grown
A subtle rust to consume
That
Which ought be youthful
Me
No cream
Two sugars
Down the hatch
Third cup
"Dear," the waitress calls me
When she asks if I want more
Sweet gesture
For men whose wives despise them
But I don't have the luxury
Of a wife to anger
No cream
No sugar
Straight black
Down the hatch
Fourth cup
Look around
Say 'goodbye'
To Suzanne Vega
And her ordinary world
This is not that diner;
I am not that Tom.
Flask out
One shot
Down the hatch
Fifth cup
The coffee smell surrounds me
Jacket cuffs browned
From this
And many a prior visit
Evenings spent
Gambler that I am
Bled my nights away
Left none for ante
Yet still I sit
At the table
At the counter
One shot
Into black
No sugar
Down the hatch
