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Balachandran V
Under the dimmed lights, shadowed faces.
Bow-tied waiters pad by silently.
From the blistering sun
Into dark, cold caves
Offering anonymity, security
Of a faceless existence.
The impassive courtesy
A flicker of familiarity
Assurance of a sanctuary -
How I love this place!
In the glass, the liquor
The clink of cubes
Frozen like my soul.
Fizz fizzling out
Like my dreams!
By oneself, in twosome or in groups
At the bar, nursing a Romanov - or two
Sometimes three or four
I am forced to look into myself -
Not a pretty sight.
At the barber, as he twists my neck
Left and right, up and down
And then firmly upright
I am forced to look at myself -
Not a pretty sight either!
Here I have come
to where?
A bar in the middle of nowhere, New York City
But it's Spanish and that's good.
And why?
Because it makes me feel
separated from obligations
and alone
in a lost town
on the west coast of vanquished Mexico.
The automatic easy emptyness
of the solved day
is gone there.
Gone with the hard binds of responsibility
A womans alcoholic joy
is used there.
So this is the bottom of the pool I drowned in.
Yet still there are mirrors;
That bloated shape that's shifting's mine.
I have visited men's rooms
in several bars
with the rows
of urinals like old men
and the six-sided odor
of disinfectant.
I have felt the sadness
of the small white tiles,
of the repeated shapes
and the unavoidable whiteness.
I have understood
that some afternoon
when it rains and the streets
blacken with umbrellas,
a white army
from all of the men's rooms
If you're interested, the mirror
will show a flat, brilliant image
of our lustrous clutter, of much
white flesh draped in black, of
green bottles, brown bottles, other
mirrors, crystal, lanterns, jewels—
glass and gems we’ve arranged
as a barricade against dawn.
The woman behind the bar lets
her gaze wander until you express
your pleasure. She wears black
velvet trimmed in lace, a brooch
depended on a black ribbon,
a golden bracelet on her arm.
After you order, your gaze wanders
to the mirror behind her. There her
Many cages round me,
Bar on bar
Stand grim, forbidding!
Ghostly pressures
Clutch my heart.
I gaze with eyes unseeing —
Whereunto may I wander free?
Alas, alas!
My garden walks lie inwardly!