Contributor: David Macpherson

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My favorite bar to write in was
a strip mall joint, 30 miles out of Boston,
where the local Harley Davison Clubs
congregated and acted royal and forgiving.
In my last-call autobiographies
I have said it was a biker bar,
but that might be too generous.
It was a run down beer mill
where folk drank because it was
the right thing to do.

In the stalls of the Men’s room
coke deals were going down regularly.
Which should be the first indicator
that this was the kind of place
a writer can sit down and do poetry.
Here, minding your own business
was always the song the juke box was playing.

I sat and drank my Newcastle
And wrote on Saturday afternoons,
in a sense of holy purgatory
waiting for absolution or
the next good line to bless me.
I’d take out my school standard composition book
And do the work I never was paid for.
In the six months that I put my time in
I was never greeted or asked how I was doing,
and I wrote things that I am still not ashamed
to call my product.

One afternoon, I vaguely heard
a new guy at the bar talk shit about
the weirdo fairy writing at the back tables.
And the regulars with their vests and attributions
leaned into the guy, and said,
“Shut the fuck up. He’s ours.
Just leave him the fuck alone.”
These men did not even look over at me
as they gave me fair passage.

They let me be to write, which is the best
Any poet can dream for.
I studied my pages, my words
and hoped they were worthy of the tribute.


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