A glass of Guinness<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in a dive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rain rips outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gamblers lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mass shooting on one TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harry Potter movie on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stuffed bobcat snarls overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corn dog $2.50<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Homeless man enters, plays the slots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another homeless man enters, leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His stench lingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Black and white photograph of Coos Bay’s last public hanging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poems for dead customers decorate the walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The poet is dead, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A favored patron, a sodden wordsmith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one wrote a poem for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess I am now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mt. Rushmore whiskey decanter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When is someone going to fly a drone into that desecration of the Black Hills?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hamm’s bear in permanent hibernation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regulars at the bar know it all,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
including the old man who pours Bud Lights into his coffees<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and limps around the neighborhood<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like a deputy in a B Western,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
searching the ground for cigarettes and cans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He’s homeless half the time,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so the story goes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
soon, most likely, full time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at least he wears<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that neon emergency vest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They give those out to the homeless<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to keep them from being run over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They call this outreach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A glass of Guinness in a dive. Rain rips outside. Gamblers lose. Mass shooting on one TV. Harry Potter movie on the other. Stuffed bobcat snarls overhead. Corn dog $2.50 Homeless man enters, plays the slots. Another homeless man enters, leaves. His stench lingers. Black and white photograph of Coos Bay’s last public hanging. Poems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9604,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}