not a disco, and not the kind of “lounge”
that is really a roadside bar,
or one filled with ferns
from the nineteen eighties,
but a real, not-on-the-Vegas-strip
where some slightly overweight guy
sits at an old fashioned electric organ
and plays music somewhere
between background and theme.
Nobody sings, and some people probably
sip martinis and Manhattans, I never did,
I overpay for a glass of wine, or diet and rum,
til I tire of alcohol and switch to coffee,
and they have pretty good coffee.
The organ music was the thing,
that and the lighting, not dark,
like a dive bar, but subdued,
and the colors ivory and black
with gold accents, not bright gold,
more old rubbed gold and if I am lucky
the booths are upholstered in the shade
of olive green my dad’s Naugahyde recliner
was in nineteen-sixty-five.
We would sit and talk
when the music wasn’t too loud,
and then just relax when he decided
the whole bar needed to focus
on this verse or that, still no singing,
as words would ruin the moment.
There were places,
where someone would sing,
but it was never the same.
Anthony Uplandpoet Watkins 