Keith Gery & Embryonic Stages

The smell of smoke and stale beer burns my nostrils.
The music from the stereo system pounds deep into my brain.
Killing my liver at the same pace as I murder the clock, I throw down a shooter.
Then I settle back on the stool and watch the TV at the end of the bar.
There's a reality show playing.
Something about making it as the last one on some tropical island.

But I'm distracted by two guys shooting pool in the corner.
There's an argument over the call of the eight-ball shot.
One of them is about to get his hair parted by a cue stick.
In the other corner, there's a couple in a booth.
Each tongue is swishing about in the other's mouth.
When they break the kiss, he almost falls off the seat.
They laugh and he orders another round before leaning over her again.
He'll soon be too drunk to perform later, and she'll be too wiped out to give a shit.

Back at the bar, a human rail on a diet of amphetamines checks out the clientele.
His snake-tongue arm darts in and out quickly as he steals tips and change from the drunks with slits for eyes.

And some big fat white girl leans against me and hoists up her skirt to display the merchandise.
But the red-light blister on her lip oozes its warning to get off the throttle.

Meanwhile, the muscle-toned bartender rolls up his beer-dampened sleeves.
He knows he's going to have to break up a fight in the corner.
Or clean up puke after a tongue slides too far back in one throat in the booth.
Or pry a drunk in heat off a patron minding his own business.

I think of those at home glued to their TV sets watching the reality show.
They are too scared, too cheap, or too moral to be seen here.
I want them to pull up a stool next to me.
Participate in life.
This reality beats the hell out of television.