The Bluegrass Tavern Chronicles(chapter 12)

 

                                                      Joe Pat Allen

     I met Joe Pat Allen early in my life, he loved sports and enjoyed playing them as well. Joe Pat worked at Burroughs like most adults at his age, either you took seasonal labor outside or you frolicked at some local factory or distillery here in Bardstown. 

     Joe Pat loved his cold mug of beer at Joe’s and everyone did. Joe’s place was home away from home where all your friends lived after work. Joe Pat was a decent pool shooter but I wouldn't say he was near the best and when he was young before his eyes started to go bad, he won a few bucks. He was decent at foosball, what a game that was, very new to Bardstown, too. The game was invented and patented by Harold Searles Thorton in 1921. A serviceman Lawrence Patterson discovered it in Germany in the 1950s and brought it into the United States. In the 1970s, the game took off with madness. A great game. I practiced endlessly, because I had free access, I cleaned up the tavern. We had some historic games on Joe’s foosball table. The winner got free beer. I played front, but was a great back goalie too. Joe Pat often played goalie as my partner. We played long enough to get drunk, then quit, and watched the World Series, or whatever game was on ESPN, or on the local channels. 

Nodus Tollens

 

Living in constant pain, the

Physical and mental misery,

Leaves one in a multitude of Hells. 

The naivety of ignorant people 

Who justify their youth by

Laughing at the old and 

Disabled, this world was 

Never right for the meek

Where the gentry control

The world. 

To An Outlying Friend

 

Oh, the circling vultures refuse to gnaw out my heart

Though the crows mock me as supreme squires with 

their judicial caws

I've stumbled on this curse again, will not depart,

This meddling with my God;

Gilded cages, silent rages 

Weathered every season

Upon these history pages 

Bourne this unspoken reason

Why thy madness beckons me? 

To this wreckage of wilt

That lures Me back to thee

And this abundance of guilt. 

Look, The Sun Is Coming Up…

 

Look, the sun is coming up…

Watching The Squirrels Fly

Watching the squirrels fly

Through the air with ease

Effortlessly these flying 

Critters on their limb trapezes. 

The bushy-tailed critters love to steal

Every nut that can be heisted

Yet, come the cold wintertime

They become shortsighted. 

The absent-minded rodent

Forgot where he stashed the nuts

Digging through the snow

Reckless and starving like a putz.

 

All Is Not Well

 

I just got back from Hell

And all is not well. 

I drove my truck 

Into bad luck, 

Now, I'm fucked.

I sit here in Hell, 

And all is not well.

I lost my faith in the Almighty

Loving Aphrodite 

Now, it's good nighty.

I just got back from Hell

And all is not well.

Pseudepigrapha

 

As the bell tolled, resounding, it also told, 

of the death of the fallen Hero. His last 

quotidian day on earth and the detritus 

of memories that light up the contemptuous 

sorrow. The coward vacillates his gamble, yet

the Hero dies. His folie à deux: chasing freedom 

and some feebled belief in an unanswering god. 

We never know what nightmares lie curled 

beneath comfort’s pillow. Killing in 

the name of freedom with such 

heinous acts and calling this 

liberation is an alternative reality. 

Conquering the weak only represses

the hold on the masses. Kings are not

mortal; they rule by necessity and 

greed. A whipped horse obeys, yet

his eyes never forget the rack of

punishment he's endured. Revolt 

will come, and then all kings will 

bow unto the subservient soldier.

Chronology isn't kind to despots, 

kings, queens, and czars; let it be

written for the common man 

that no tyrant will ever control 

the world.