No Compassion For A Barfly

I lean on the bar

Both elbows

And watch.

He sits there

Underneath the bookshelf

Full of leatherbound books

Which no one has ever read

Or can read –

They’re fakes.

He’s been here for an hour

Drinking, drinking, drinking,

Three glasses there in front of him,

Emptied.

He sips the first drop preciously

From his fourth lunchtime pint,

Looking again into the glass

For answers

And I’m sure

That all he finds there

Is a flat vacant stare,

The same one always

Looking back at him,

And further questions.

I am his bartender.

He is my brotherman.

There is no compassion for barflies

in the line of work.