Jay Passer- Three Poems

CONFESSION OF A SERVICE BOT

first I was a barista

then a dishwasher

I started prepping

then moved up to fry cook

then I led the line

I managed a pizza joint

I dated a waitress

then I cheated on my date with

a different waitress

then the owner of the place and I 

got into a fight

then 

the ownership split apart

and I was on my own

I played pool 

and threw darts and wondered

as the old guys from the old haunts

started to overdose and die

I walked the streets and rode the buses

I made pizza 

at a different parlor

the night sky rained all manner of pornography

cloaked in philosophy

times changed through 20 years of wear and tear

technology rebuked the old-school manner

of posting a damn letter

of apology

say to Mom

or God

maybe a best friend

say to a waitress or 2

THE DRIVER

Mark drove like Al Unser

shot pool like Minnesota Fats

eagle eye, enjoyed chewing lemons, rind and all

side of jalapeno and a wink, say you’re a child

shy and enchanted

cocaine changed all that

and when he started to smoke it

Mark took up with dimensionless whores

a master printer, he hence defied all sense of pragmatism

took the whores in till one of them

remained awake long enough

to burn down the house

he worked 20 years for

Mark was in love

but with what or whom?

he shuffled about some, gangly and rough

got in a fist fight once in a while

eye wavering, until his cue was stolen

and driver’s license expired

ME AND CRAZY MIKE

we played backgammon in the balcony

the windows iridescent with sleaze

the chatter of chicks just off work

being secretaries

we traded wins and losses

lined up lines and smoked incessantly

blue trails of vitriol

best friends in the iconoclasm of serfdom

me and Crazy Mike

Mike decked in pink denims stolen from

Garfield High’s lost and found

moon eyes roving, unblinking over

the underage schoolyard populace

here we are on the seamier side of Paradise

cheap pitchers of Rainier beer

and Romance

here comes Rainy

“you know my last name is Daze”

wince and ouch

in ambles Sally

the floozie with the 3-fingered left hand

who got an autograph of Patti Smith’s

tattooed to her left tit

in struts Maria

Mike woulda stuck a knife in Kevin’s abdomen for her

women like flowers 

in a garbage dump 

of requiem

it’s a long story

we never grow tired of repeating

over the balcony shadows and King Gammon