other way around,

it was dark

and in the next

moment

it was daylight.

I once asked the

bartender, “hey,

Jim, did you notice

that it was dark

and now the sun

is shining!

isn’t that strange?”

“no,” he answered,

“you went to your

room and then came

back again.”

at times I resented

my role.

the patrons were

hardly intellectual,

there was a lifeless

and satisfied deadness

about them

and yet I had to

depend upon their

whims.

I was on

that bar stool for

3 years from 5 a.m.

to 2 a.m.

I must have slept

while I drank.

I believe that I was

trying to kill myself

with drink and

back alley

brawls

but it wasn’t

working.

my greatest problem

were my toenails

which I never

cut

and which pained

me in my

shoes.

but eventually

they broke off

or the whole

nail would fall

off

leaving that

tender flesh

plus

a few split

lips,

mangled fingers,

lumps on the

knee

from falling,

and that was the

extent of

it.

I was evicted from

room after room

but always managed

to find

another.

it was as good a

life as I could

eke out.

I was avoiding

becoming ensnared

in a common

manner of

living.

I truly believed

that this was

important to me

when everything

else was

not.

and the one

stool was

mine.

the one down

at the end of

the

bar.

it was all that

I owned.

it was all that

I needed.

there was no

other man

I preferred to be

or no

other way that

I preferred.

I was at the

peak of my

courage,

sitting there

waiting for

that next

drink.

do you see

what I

mean?

the mirror game

Peter was a freak, Peter was fat, Peter

was dumb, Peter was clumsy, Peter stuttered

and Peter stumbled and the girls giggled at

Peter and the boys taunted him, and Peter

was often kept after school and Peter’s glasses

always fell off and his shoelaces

were untied and his shirttail hung

out and his clothing was unlike anything

we’d ever seen and Peter always sat

in a back seat in class with snot running

from his nose.

that was then. that was grammar school and

junior high, and time went

on and

now

Peter never drives his expensive car more than

one year and he always has a new and

beautiful girlfriend and he no longer wears

glasses and he has thinned down, looks almost

handsome but certainly assured, he

has a home in Mexico and a home in Hollywood.

Peter deals in art work and the stock

market, he speaks three languages, has a

yacht and a private plane and he also

sometimes produces movies.

those who knew him then don’t know him

now.

something

happened, what the hell

was it?

and most of the golden boys of yore

who are still around now

are misshapen, beaten, inglorious,

idiotic, homeless, senile or

dying.