Lenny Bruce is not afraid By Alex Stolis

It’s all a trip and the best part is you don’t know where 

you’re going, all roads detoured, doors

locked, windows

locked, hearts, minds, locked tight as a drum,

tight as 

the guy at the end of the bar who’s scared of

going home, 

can’t remember what his wife looks like,

can’t imagine 

a world without gin and tonic and whiskies so

sour the 

clouds pucker with rain, and the bartender

doesn’t hear 

and watches the woman hitting on the guy, an

unlit 

cigarette dangling, skirt slit, lights low and

the clink

clink of ice against glass, the music dies a

slow death,

spotlight hits, the murmur and hush of a

bored crowd, 

the marijuana wafting out the door, and there

you are, 

punked-up and gothed-out waiting for me to remember 

how to be seared to ash.

                         Alex lives in Minneapolis