LITERARY EFFORTS/TIN PALACE

I’m sitting at my table

                                   listening
to music, trying
                        to write a poem
                                                about music
(Lisa said bring music poems)

now
the other day
                        when I saw Frank
Frank said
             bring bar poems

so I sat in the bar
                        all day
but when it was time to go home
I hadn’t written any bar poems no poems at all
I couldn’t even see

so I had one for the road

and I was listening to the music
trying to write a music poem

                        but I was getting tired

so I thought I’d just
                        try again
for that bar poem

  Gregg Weatherby __

SARGASSO

I wait for the mailman every day

regretfully
the cards and letters
do not keep pouring in
thank you

sorry
we are not all
in one place
and I am too busy writing things like this
to look up old addresses
even though
I’d love to tell you
how the sweeping palm
in the front yard
brushes the awning in soft breezes
or the cactus
that flowers every evening
long days on the beaches
nights alone in bars

  Gregg Weatherby__

THE OLD REGULARS LONG GONE

I don’t know why I thought of you
this rainy night
so far removed from the city
there were ghosts in the air
                                     space and time disappeared
and you long gone

I was sitting here quiet upstate
the trees newly leafed suddenly
I remembered                                       this feeling when
there were men so sad they didn’t know it
the talk the pints
space and time disappeared
and each man to his own memory
around closing time
when a lone tenor voice
would sing

  Gregg Weatherby__