A Good Old "Loser in a Bar" Play

for Steve Williamson

He said he'd flunked Mystery School.
Everybody moved a stool further
Away. Not that one more fool
In a Port Jervis bar mattered. Murder,
Stolen tools, layoffs, they'd listen,
Buy another round for this bum,
But who wants to hear him pissin'
Into the wind about some
Transformation that didn't happen?
 
"Shadow side? Yeah tell me about
It," snorts the Barkeep. "You win
Some, and sometimes you pay out
To consensual reality. Don't feel
That you deserve Saroyan or O'Neill."

View Joe Wrobel recording this poem