Robert L. Penick (2 poems)
Midnight at the Quarterpole Bar and Lounge
Drunk, stumbling, I walked down to be with the other humans. I treasure solitude but, on this particular night, darkness gnawed at me like cancer. Halfway there, an older Hispanic man
rolled up on his bicycle. Asked where the nearest tavern might be. He rode ahead and I met him
at the Quarterpole. We watched the people dancing, laughing, coughing, swearing, drinking, carrying on with a manic desperation.
They were racetrack workers: Grooms, exercise riders, hot walkers. All of us poor. Owners
and trainers must drink across town, I told my friend. His name was Gregorio. Said his boss couldn’t win a race if he saddled Secretariat. Just before last call, he leaned into me and
whispered, “Everyone here is missing piece of something. The sad ones laugh too much,
unhappy lovers cling like skin to bone. The poorest players buy the most rounds. Everyone
hides a secret. What is yours, my friend?”
Pilgrim
I’ve never been adept at the art of living, the making of beaming Facebook photographs and euphoric birthday celebrations. Is there a course for the awkward, the bent but not quite broken, to help them assimilate into society? Is there a treatment program that will make me enjoy television, drive-time talk radio and eating hamburgers out of cardboard boxes? Will I one day
opt for wedging myself into bars and bistros that are impossibly loud, into clothes that hung, pre-ripped and faded, on retail hangers? Will I at any point fit into this world? Is there a cure?
Robert L. Penick's work has appeared in over 100 different literary journals, including The Hudson Review, North American Review, and The California Quarterly. In 2018, my Exit, Stage Left won the Slipstream Press chapbook contest. More of my work can be found at http://www.theartofmercy.net