A Town and a Bar

Dave and I once went to this bar called
The Green Door or The Red Door or something

it was quiet studio-size two-dollar screw-drivers
3 ex-cons sitting at 3 separate stools

I remember this bar

because it was the first time I ever thought I might get stabbed

we finished our drinks and got the hell out of there

The ex-cons silent

I remember this bar

because it reminds me of who I am

a guy afraid of getting stabbed

while some ex-cons sit silent

thinking of legitimate jobs

Not too long after that
the mayor of the town that bar was in got arrested

I think it was embezzlement

She’s probably out by now

and the ex-cons are probably back in

or worse

working legitimate jobs

I don’t care much for Cicero, Illinois

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

The Little Things

After a long day at the museum
kids screaming in my ear and the hot piss smell
of the 3-D theatre washroom wafting into my ticket post
I sit on my bed with nothing on but a pair of jeans
take a good drink of an ice cold Coke in front of my old
trusty AC set to 67 while outside it’s 85 degrees
and the murder rate goes up for lack of anything better to do
in the dumbfuck streets and girls in sundresses breeze past
whooping drunks and the cop cars slow down at every Mexican
and the stand on Ashland/Division sells elotes to emaciated
bike messengers and it’s times like this
when you have a second wind and you could care less about pussy
and the stock market and sleep and the tornadoes touch down
in Dalton Illinois and the gunrunners run
and the TV and the radio and the teacher all talk about nothing
and the war is good at times like this
in the dumbfuck streets
they murder each other over nothing
as you lay back
and chew on the ice

© 2008 Lee Kitzis