Sunset Wine

Evening wears like five o'clock shadows;
grizzled grey gruff beneath wrinkled brow.
Every memory, taunting and hollow
except for black and white pictures now.
There is the man in the felt fedora,
smoking his smelly old Cuban cigar.
Back bent low as he rests on elbows
over his whiskey in a seaside bar
The restaurant air, heavy and greasy;
Scallops and shrimp and oyster stew
While ocean waves wash slow and easy
primordial sands with strains of blue
Piano tunes play from hazy poolrooms
Ivory notes that are filled with soul
A leather-jacketed man chalks his cue
Jazz of Count Basie and Nat King Cole
Will we fall in love only
to find it regrettable?
Shall I remain; a sweet refrain...
Unforgettable?
The night wears on in trails of blue
Cigarette smoke fills the seaside bar
Rolling like dark Mississippi bayous
As Muddy Waters plays his guitar
Girls hike up their shining skirts
Flash of flesh as they dance and grind
Buying their whiskey never hurts
Knowing the thing on every man's mind
Night goes flying in raucous laughter
Only to settle on spilling rim
Where the drink is drunk; sedated after
In quiet corners where light is dim
To be certain there will be
A morning after;
a dull accounting of distant sin
But tonight we are free
From parish and pastor
To swim in the sea or bathtub gin
Ragweed smell in restaurant lot
Tells of lovers parked in the night
Windows rolled up and smoking pot
Away from others and safe from sight
And all the while we hear the band;
Blues and Jazz of a thousand nights
Black cat bone, Hoochie Coochie Man
In waves reflecting colored lights
Out on the sea the moon shines alone
Drinking the ocean; salty with brine
Pulling her skirts and shuffling on
Until all is forgotten in sunset wine

Postcard

Inside a secondhand copy
Of The Old Man and the Sea
Is a gray postcard from Paris
Addressed from you to me
The month of May, three years ago
Not much to say, how could we know
Eight months later you would be gone
Now, I lay in my bed alone
Thinking how such a thing can be
When here are words you've written me
And so much more they seem to say
"I saw the Eiffel Tower Today."
The postage stamp, La Seine, Paris
Inside the Old Man and the Sea
Between the pages of Hemingway
In a faded copy of equal gray
Copyrighted in nineteen fifty-two
I have a postcard sent from you
"I've thought of you often"
And here, I smile
And dry a tear after awhile
To close the book with a tacit wish
Where the old man battles his mighty fish
And I silently struggle with what to do
With a postcard from Paris
And memories of you