Terminal Cases
This is the bar where beer goes
to turn flat in lines that have not
been cleaned for thirty years,
lines so thick with slime and yeast and
bacterial waste only the scum filters
through with liquids unfit for human
intake though the men who drink
here neither notice nor care.
Their eyes no longer focus,
Their mouths no longer taste,
though nothing stops them lighting up
between sips, between gobs of blood
coughed up and spit on the floor
where more than one of them
will go to die. No one asks questions
about how it has come to this or why;
this is why they are living; it’s just
what they do.
©2023 Alan Catlin All rights reserved.
Alan Catlin has been publishing since the 70’s which makes him older than dirt as far as online publishing goes. He has adapted and has published in dozens if not hundreds of online publications and even got nominated for a Best of the Net Award. That and dozens of Pushcart nominations, Stoker Award nominations, Rhysling Nominations and etc, and two bucks will get you on the local express bus.