welcome to the lost highway bar and grill.
we've got barely live entertainment
blowing up the spot with igneous rock concerts.
our halfway house band plays behind voodoo chicken wire
to avoid barfights with personal demons.
here the bills are paid in full throttle
with johnny cash or static charge cards.
our beer is flatter and warmer than ohio in july
and we dip bullets in whiskey just in case you want a shot.
our martinis are not just shaken, they're traumatized.
we've hired a messiah as barkeep
to cut down on wine costs.
(he should not be crossed.)
be sure to tip your molotov cocktail waitress
and make sure that insecurity stamps your hand at the door.
our clientele consists of
working class clowns
beer nursing students
menstrual cyclists
and you on your worst day.
this is where buddha bellies up to the bar.
where angels fear to tread.
we serve soda pop idols in coke bottles as thick as glasses.
our burgers are served somewhere between rare and endangered.
this is the place where sitting in the corner
are our irregular customers
playing a game of bones
without dominoes.
two bit hustlers run games of three card monte on one-time
and that's when we make a clean break in the action
to watch her debut in through the swinging doors.
the kind of woman to make a caveman go back to all fours
she made mount rushmore turn their collective heads
had darwin rethinking that theory of evolution thing.
she was cool and laid back like country time
you might call her patsy recline
except she's nobody's patsy
so we'll just call her devil in a red dress
or the one that got away for everyone else.
ready to play reindeer games
like "on cupid on vixen",
she was an untamed heart specialist
and she kept it together
while all the king's men fell to pieces in her wake.
so flash forth to present tense
she sidles up to the bar
lights a camel because she's out of cigarettes
and orders a shirley temple of doom
with a hemlock chaser.
she puts a quarter in the jukebox
and plays the saddest song you've ever heard.
the flies out back by the dumpster stop buzzing to listen.
grooms everywhere are instantly left at the altar
and lucifer gets on the pay phone and drunkenly tells God
that he misses him.
that's the kind of song this is.
the kind of tune in the key of let it all out
heroin hears it and injects billie holiday in to his arm to ease the pain.
this melody makes tears cry.
and Hey-Zeus the bartender stops wiping down the bar for a minute
cocks his head like a pistol
and inquires as to the nature of the crime
that would inspire a desert flower to act like cactus
to drink with drive
he pours two fingers of jack
and listens to how her hand was dealt.
by now
all the hard rocks in the place have been reduced to gravel.
so she swaps stories with her server
the one who seems to relate to her prison tales
because he's been behind bars before.
now watch the hands on the clock twirl around triple time
until big hand's straight up like no chaser
little hand's leaning slightly to the right
like our girl.
her eyes are matching her dress now.
she whispers something in his ear
and he tells her she's a cab.
she doesn't get it and won't until hours later
after she's been poured into bed
by sheer instinct.
she doesn't remember how she got there
but today
the load seems lighter
because someone leaned over and listened
without playing ann landers.
and if there's one lesson learned
on this stretch of the lost highway
it's that
opinions are like saviours
and everybody's got one.

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"You Sensitive Bastard", Rob Sturma's latest book of poems, is available directly from the author. It's a pretty book with a real ISBN number and everything.

www.myspace.com/robsturma