Two For The Price Of One

Two for the price of one---

I usually don’t write like this, but now I have two poems.

Octoberfest And All The Existential Truths Of Tasting Beer

At the Brewery’s Octoberfest,
We didn’t intend to drink so much.
Who does?
We were going to hear the cover band
and have one, maybe two glasses.
But we talk. We talk and sing and laugh and smile
And you tell me about girls you hit on and I say
They’re young for you but then again I am young for you
And people are dressed like Bavarians and are carrying around beer steins.
There is pork barbeque and kielbasa,
The Polka band played last night.
You protect me from a man who
asks me if I play dominoes and
I know breathing is
not to be taken for granted.

You are close and happiness
Is singing as the band covers ACDC.
Even though hair metal didn’t exist
For nerds like us, who were more into the Talking Heads
Than Twisted Sister’s bleach blond debauchery.
Oh, hops and barley, the sweet indulgences
of this hard working life.
Would that all days be this honest and frank
The beer could use more head
And I would like to use so much less of mine.
In Berlin, there’s more purity to the taste.
The Germans drink a pint with breakfast.
Americans hide the taste
with tons of preservatives.

You talk about your mom, and make plans for us,
To visit a museum in Phila, a Chili Peppers concert,
And fantasize a bit longer
Here on the macadam of a beer distillery,
In the center of a crowd, surrounded by indecisive trees and people
Who can’t decide what color to wear
before they say goodbye.
We dance and shout, and I forgive you
Even when you give me the left-handed compliment
About looking like Teresa Soldana, the lunatic
Who killed Warhol and is up for parole.

In the bar for one more nightcap,
We play darts and I sometimes miss the board,
Staggering around to Van Morrison’s Into The Mystic
Oh, ocean, you are here, in the waves of the game
That won’t last, in the sharp edge of the dart,
We point and throw.
We throw and miss.
Take three at a time
and see how many hit the middle, you say,
Only one lands
straight for the bullseye.