Thank you to Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for publishing my poem.

https://www.arielchart.com/2020/11/another-two-fingers-of-whiskey-please.html

Another Two Fingers of Whiskey Please 



There’s more folks tonight at the bar 

than on the dance floor, 

even with that majestic music playing, 

so achingly familiar. 

People wandering like half-dazed cattle, 

once thinking the music would be immutable, 

but it plays now with a silence 

so muted it’s crushing. 



The noise in those frequenters’ heads, 

grown so loud it births each a new perception, 

not sought, but still found 

like a street they falsely remember curving one way, 

when in fact, it’s curved toward the other direction. 



Time and bars are great snaking archways 

that twist all five senses, 

while stunned habitués stay focused 

on what never really mattered.