Lunching With Joe

Lunching With Joe

there is a

sweet disorder

to lunching with Joe

deep in the middle of

the worst month

cowered in a dim crook

among the Irish barflies

their scruffy clothes

brooding looks

& racking coughs

over pints of draft beer

empty soup cups

& lively ukulele music

we are

dedicated to poetry

he draws

the world closer

proximate to touch

shouting lines from        

haikus

                sonnets               

                                odes

words warp w/ a romantic

crookedness

he is a buoyant devotee

confronting impossibility

                & my decrees

are prized in his company

words wound tight

fitted w/ implication

so when I rise to leave

                sodden of poet sage

(how the end

always begins)

inexpressible anguish

                floods his fair face

& he murmurs low

a lonesome farewell

I was beginning to love you

                alas you leave

he is unaware

                of my grieving

**

The title of this poem came from book passage and I couldn't get it out of my head. I fell asleep last night dreaming about two souls converging in an old dark pub, among vagrants, over sustenance in bowls and cups, sharing their musings about poetry. A union fleeting yet rife with meaning. It was an image, a relationship I couldn't shake. 

And so, I tackled it. Played with it. Molded it and composed it. 

Another nugget for poetry month. 

In propinquity,

Nic