O’CONNER’S

Friday Night Baseball
I’d rather be reading
The label on my beer
Or the lull of conversation
Disparately plunging about
The bar’s arduous clinks
Glass sweating, summer
Stalling but proximate
Wilco then Silver Jews
Bud then Pilsner Urquell
As a muted relief moves
Across the countenance
While across the continents
War breeds like a wound
Pounded by parasites
The undead traipsing
Through sun-baked dunes
At least in my imagination
My eyes having only
Seen the deserts of Egypt
And New Mexico, just
Thinking of it makes me
Perspire, as my retiring
Eyes alight to the sight
Of friends fresh off
The fifth avenue bus
The night having only
Just begun, Silver Jews
Giving way to the Rolling
Stones, a table opens up
Things get jugular in
A congenial way, more
Beers are bought, I bring
Up Bush’s latest binary
Reduction cum cowboy
Shit-talking speech, which
Brings up our collective
Volume, each voice warring
With the jukebox, sparing
No ear its Friday din
Which seems to have no end
As the beers keep coming
And we take turns slumming
With the clientele for cigarettes
Everyone having run out
As the television has finally
And we won’t give up
Until everyone’s pockets
Are empty too