Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Alibi



A little poem for this Thursday -- thanks for reading!

The Alibi

It seemed inevitable that I’d end up in a place
like this. Detroit, Michigan, 1999, a few years
away from thirty. The snow already gray, already
tired. The sign on the Tool and Dye shop next
door says, Forty Days Until Spring. A countdown.
My friend gets us two drinks at the bar where its happy
hour for another twenty minutes, although you’d never
know it from the grim-faced regulars. If you haven’t
guessed, it’s not the kind of place where they ask
what kind of vodka you want. Like everything else
in this city, you take what you’re given and then some.

4 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

you take what you are given. A motto for life, I suppose. AT least for many of us.

Shea Goff said...

There's a certain hope here, like the countdown, the happy hour. I think that's what draws me to your writing, your honesty about a certain bleakness where you dot hope as an irony.

As always, you totally rock at this writing thing. Thank you.

the walking man said...

As long as the "and then some" isn't shit, we will take it and sell it, smoke it or put it up our noses.

We don't take shit here no matter where it comes from. But then you know that because you're from here.

Liked the piece by the by. But we have changed the name from "Happy Hour" to "well drinks cheap from noon to midnight hours"

Lana Gramlich said...

I've been thinking more recently about how sad Detroit's fate has been. I hope things start improving soon.

(BTW, e-mailed you a thanks for the cheesecake. Don't know if you got it. You're way too good to me!)