Saturday Night at the Shamrock by Karen Warinsky

(Ode to a favorite college bar)

Winter west of Chicago hosts black prairie nights, 

relentless wind,

snow frozen to the edges of sidewalks, 

edges of smiles.  

Down on Lincoln Highway

half-a-dozen taverns fill in space between the shops.

Our favorite is The Shamrock where we warm bones,

play pool, drink cheap beer and dance.  

Low, gold light pours through diamond panes in the dark wood door-- 

that pushes into a great room, dim and comforting, 

forgiving flaws and foolishness.

The black-stained oak, varnished to gloss  

lets 40 years of prints and pints be wiped away. 

Tudor décor surrounds us with the flavor of Medieval Europe, 

though we sit in Illinois.

There are regulars.  

We are regulars, too; know not to sit at the corner of the bar.

That seat belongs to “The Chief,” a russet-haired, Vietnam Vet, 

keeper of good vinyl at the Record Revolution.

He sits alone, speaks only to the bartender,

watches our antics with a void expression.

 

Saturday is special when Batista’s band plays, 

a shot of electric funk for the craving crowd.

We always sit on the main floor, never in the balcony.

We are there early enough to get a table, share our chairs

and dance, dance, dance until the band can play no more.

The beat is mild, reggae infused, livable.  

Moving out into the smoky air, we sway in time, 

become an amorphous, pulsating amoeba--

twist, get low, and shake it back up to  

float again among the gathering.

Sweaty, satisfied, we are not sad when the lights come up

and it’s last call.  

We have another drink though there is no need;

won’t feel the cold going home.

It is Saturday night at The Shamrock, and now 

we’ll make it till Tuesday, 

when we will come again to drink the 30 cent beers.

Karen Warinsky’s poetry career took off in 2013 when she was a finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest.  Since then she has published widely in journals and anthologies including Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands,  the Mizmor Anthology , and she released her debut collection Gold in Autumn in 2020.  Her work has also appeared in several lit magazines and Ezines including Blue Heron, Light; a journal of photography and poetry, Circumference, Verse Virtual, and she will have a piece in the spring edition of Consilience.  She organizes poetry readings at Roseland Park in Woodstock, CT and at the GB & Lexi Singh Performance Center in Whitinsville, MA.