class:
instructor: Tom Molanphy
student: Yoshimi Fukazawa
The Ghost of an Old Man
The ghost of an old man sat at a bar
Missed his reflection in the rows of bottles
Missed his reflection
The mask of time's scars
In the crawling smoke from claw's mounting ashes.
He waited for the jukebox to play his forgotten quarters
Lost in the hustle of anthems
Motioned for the bar girl to refill his glasses and
Stacked bottlecaps into leaning towers riding tall grasses.
On the back of a chinese takeout menu
He remembered a map with the end of a pencil. and
Made careful directions of memories winding through dragon's
Flaming tail
To the house where he lived with his wife for forty years
"But now she is dead" He said.
The ghost of an old man sat at a bar
Tapped another cigarette from its crumbled pack lair
Counted stars rising in the head of his beer
And painted a flame with a match in the dark.
"I am alone."
In between songs, a silence
Fell.
The ghost of an old man sat at a bar
Saw his reflection in the half empty jars
Sang old songs in his head
Chet Baker, the ones that they shared
Took long drinks of his cold beer,
Thought "Old bottlecaps are nothing to fear,
And a map is not as much as forty years."
But we are all ghost the young and the old
Sitting in bars with our songs and our maps
Losing and finding our reflections
Calling to the bar girl to bring more beer
And making tall stacks of the things
We
Fear.