Interlude: in a Bar

Across the room the shifting smoke
Settles around the forms that pass
Pass through or clog the brain;
Across the floors that soak
The dregs from broken glass

The walls fling back the scattered streams
Of life that seems
Visionary, and yet hard;
Immediate, and far;
But hard . . .
Broken and scarred
Like dirty broken finger nails
Tapping the bar.