The 1000 pp. Novel: (1960-70)
Verse VII
Stanza B
It was a far out bar Maxs Drop Dead Inn.
You know who drank there?
Jimmy the Wrench & Peter Honda the cat with no teeth
Three-button Coates & Ronny Schvartza
Waitresses from the Dirty Drug & the bisexual chick with the weird husband
Trixie & Lori the speedy sisters whose old man played oboe for the symphony
Cluck Pinsky the bouncer from down the street who’d shot up with Red Rodney
& Rick Teniel Jr his parole officer the ward leaders son.
There wasn’t any light & there wasn’t any air
but there were two different juke boxes running like Offie engines
strong as steel wild as whips noisier n Suoy Chou Phu
& the beer & sweat spilled & sloshed & slopped together steady on as tides,
mixing with the discharge from the junker toilets gutted gurgling,
bubbling over dribbling cross the floor.
Some bar.
So great.
Had it all.
Any night.
There it was.
Just like that.
& in all the hot dark noise of Maxs Drop Dead all of us
Not giving one fuck.