Sitting alone at a bar
downing rows of tequila shots
earns you your bar cred
griping rights: politics, sports,
love, loss, life’s inequities
pour-out-your-heart
privilege, at the very least
knowing, indifferent nod,
patronizing smile
tacit agreement smirk
‘go for it’ shrug
Sitting by yourself at Starbucks’
throwing back espresso shots
buys you a hipster buzz
clicking away on your laptop
caressing your smartphone to life
cyber-genie-in-rectangle-bottle
earning you little more
than barista indifference
as they lack the hereditary
imperative of the best barkeeps
worldly servers, even
past-their-prime barflies
beverage gentrification of the
traditional, dimly-lit, urban habitat
renders the trusted, guru-esque
breed of mixologist one of our
most endangered species
Master the artful hybrid genetics
of barkeeps and barista
there is a Nobel Prize for you.
Or at very least, a perpetually
overflowing tip jar.
– Mark Lucker
Ponderable polemics, poetic 