Long Story Short Poem by Dick Holmes

Long Story Short



I met her in a place halfway between
Heaven and Hell, a singular bar
by the name of Twelve Bar Blues.
Singular because, for one thing, its name
had more to do with the shape of the bar
than with the music played there;
it was a large, twelve-sided bar.

Twelve Bar, as the place was called
by its devoted patrons, was nestled
in an old-growth seaside forest,
only a stone's throw from the sand and sea.
People would come across Twelve Bar
somehow — friends of friends, blind luck,
destiny, who knew — and once
they'd found it, they would usually
keep coming back.

They would all say it was the bartender
that drew them there, though no one
could say what it was about him
that had that effect. It certainly
wasn't his skill in making cocktails;
Twelve Bar didn't even serve alcohol.
It wasn’t the nectars he concocted, either.
They were delicious and refreshing
but no moreso than those served
in other good juice bars.
But he was a beautiful human being —
quiet, smiling, nimble in every sense.
Nimble feet and hands, nimble fingers,
nimble compassion, nimble wit.
Like the sure hands of a Swiss clock,
he worked the middle of the bar
all by himself and managed to satisfy
the needs of all the patrons — those
sitting around him at the twelve bars
in one and those who came in
from the tables outside to order drinks.

'Sure you want to hear it? '
she asked me, out on the deck
watching the waves come crashing ashore.

'Let's hear it, ' I reassured her.

'Okay...' she said, 'long story short,
I lost everything.
That was the beginning.'

'And how about the middle? '

'The middle was I didn't get it back,
didn't want it back, anyway, finally.'

'And the end? '

'The end is what you see now, '
she said, wisps of her long hair
lifting and falling in the ocean breeze,
'nothing but this uncovered flame
of a soul flickering in the wind,
free and happy as can be.'

What did I see in her eyes that
moonless, starlit night at Twelve Bar?
'The end is what you see now...
free and happy as can be.'

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