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Ode #3 to Dive Bar City

Kenneth DiMaggio

Ever since a lightening
bolt struck it

the juke box at
Leo’s Sports Bar & Grill
would periodically play
a record and once again
convince the patrons that
it was a sign from Jesus
to stop drinking and will
once they finish their
shot of bourbon and bottle
of beer before them on
the mahogany counter

Over at Eddie’s Bowl-A-Rama
(or so the story goes) a hunk
of meteorite crashed through
one night while at My Cousin’s
Café a mouse would sometimes
pop its head out of one of the
pool table pockets but scurry
away before you could knock
it out with one of the pool
balls

Oh was that rock in the
jar next to the cash register
a hunk of outer space and is
God or somebody up there
a fan of Country & Western
from the way a song by
Waylon Jennings suddenly
by itself would start to play

If some of these bars seemed
to randomly crash into other
dimensions
It made the professional
drinkers feel more at
home and less ashamed
of cracks & crevices they
were still trying to leave
behind

and whether it crawled out
from a pool table or behind
a bar

it was such sentimental
moments when you would
see a patron tilting his glass
so that a mouse could drink

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