The Record

Three hours of erratic fly-by's and he's still a pacing mess,
bumbling along from jukebox to bar to his isolated post
near the side door, spanking his brow with furious adjustments.
Back and forth he goes— no drip here!— leavening his inner pabulum

with tinctures of Curly's agitated mewling and Kramden's distressed moons. Not once, never once, taking his eyes off the tube.
The ballgame's got him in knots— terribly, terribly conflicting knots—
wring-wringing the savage drunk out to the systolic knuckling and

splay of his hands.
Then along comes the Young Turk who thought he could bust one
up and in, and Bonds sends yet another into the drink, the dark night skies
in abeyance to the ball's drift and descent.

Through the roar and replays our knave's up with a bound
and cruising a fit of release. He's nimble and hefty at once
(a man become bull), hurtling down an imaginary lane of fire and wrath
until he zeroes in on his desired point

and shifts his offering to an evocatively fey mince, his hips
yanking the jeans down to an unbidden half life of his ass.
"Look, I'm the bartender, I tell this guy to get the fuck outta here.
Tell him to go back to the sandbox he crawled out of— Christ!"

Having none of that though, he's rather satisfied. He sashays in place,
an ashtray and cigarette in one hand, and wishes in the other.
Welcome: behold the nexus of his lonely nights at the mirror
just before the throes of his stars abandon him and his jizz spatters the rug.