California Bar, Summer Afternoon, 1977

2:38, lost afternoon, bourbon chasers
With 40-cent draws, a half-devoured
Tombstone pizza, and the buzz is complete
And good and strong, and empowered
To make the day seem more sweet
And special -- and neither hero nor coward
Are we who gather here on stools to meet
At the long wooden altar of Bacchus
In mid-afternoon off the summer-hot street
Of a dull transitional part of the City,
And a guy starts playing his accordion,
The spritely-sad melody adding implicitly
To the overall sensory innebriation,
Which is exactly why we come here
To kill the minutes of our privation,
For escape, companionship, sedation...