The red neon FORTUNE TELLER sign
glows over Colombus Street. Wednesday night,
men in suits from the office,
ladies in their high heels head up
past Spec's, past the bench out front
in Adler Museum's alley across from City Lights
in SF. I'm hanging around.
A guy in three black coats walks up
shaking a cup in my face. A man
with a violin wanders with his solo
through the traffic and the whole bar
sings Happy Birthday, locals revolving
in and out for a smoke
as evening hums but it's early,
sun spills between the buildings.
At dusk the poets come out.
It's not romantic, it's common,
in the blood, in late night ink,
in a tribe's way to gather
for fire, fire water, the dance
across the keyboard, for the blues,
for the crowded round table,
for the talk. Inside the dark door
fifteen flags hang like tired countries
tacked to the ceiling, reflected
in the dusty glass dreams framed
for a flirt with memory, mementos
of what was and what still happens.
"Poetry night," says a woman and they come
with cardboard plates of take-out food
and bags of books to order wine.
There's time for nothing else.
Way in back the old Asian artist
pulls his braided beard and dips
into the palette, he and his tools
hunched over a sign, brushes in glasses
and glasses of brandy or whiskey and water
set right on the board: SPEC'S it says.
Mixing pigment in TV dinner trays
he smiles at the letters, and the word is out
all over the table: flyers, invitations, readings.
I don't know these people but they tell me
to come into the history on these walls:
the poets, the sailors, the girls,
fishing weights, a football hung by a string,
news clippings, boat lamps, red, green
all in the maze of the Twelve Adler Mystery
mapped out. O, the hot dates.
Shots of a bar long gone.
The piano player slides on in, pours himself
over the ivory, boogey explodes the shadows,
someone in line for the bathroom is clapping,
comrades head to head discussing
the neighborhood, poetry and politics.
The people: guys in ranger hats,
top hats, secret agents, Hawaiian shirts,
starched shirts, women who can't be stopped,
the poets and the jazz howling.
Only lovers at this table,
sparks singe the backlit backbar
as the bartender paces herself,
her fingers pulse with the ice
granting wishes, an angel
anointing the house of Spec.
For Spec's 80th birthday - May 2010
Spec's, North Beach, SF