Poetry night at Carmody Irish Pub

An homage to poetry night at Carmody:

If a footstomping avatar of Francois Villon
didn’t swing his head like a skinny elephant,
the weight of its contents driving
his pondering words

If Paul didn’t pick his dandy’s way
through the ordinary debris of life at the end
of a Sears century, tenderly cradling
the crap of our days

If Ken didn’t love and hate a beautiful
antique crossbow from Germany
more than he loved and hated the father who loved it
more than him

If a beautiful darkhaired girl didn’t
open the laptop of her childhood
and with a handmaiden to hold the apple,
toss the golden fruits of story to slow
her pursuers
but not discourage them

If the tall sailor didn’t lean his dark figure into the wordstorm,
holding a camera aloft like a sextant, taking a nightsight
amusement playing over his face like weather

If it didn’t happen in this bar, whose ancient fug
and crackling fire are new (but the veneer has deep roots)
and whose owner ends the reading by reciting
in a murmuring growl, one verse
resoundingly obscene
from a notorious sea chanty

If all this didn’t happen
(but it did)
every year about this time
we wouldn’t be living in this dear old dirty old beauty,
this city like no other spot on earth.