FreeWrights Peer Review™

there was this bar, a dingy culture breeding low life
most of that crowd would kick a dog if it was down
apart from which they weren’t such a bad bunch of gutter dwellers
still, it pays to keep your back covered

i was sipping lights and waiting for the pavarotti special to come on tv
staying sober because soon i’d be yelling at some of those slugs stuck to the back wall
to shut their stupid faces
and that’s when they tend to forget what a likeable bloke i really am

this dude comes through the door, a sailor, big afro-american guy
he looks like the original ensign pulverizer
he also looks lost
and if someone don’t find him real soon, he just might fight his way home
i stood up, looked straight at him and pointed at my chair
by the time he’d worked his way through the mob
i had 10oz’s of frosty amber waiting for him
he downed it and ordered a bottle of tully

man i can’t hold my liquor so it wasn’t long before he gave me the chair back
the dude then starts telling nigger-honky jokes
and if i don’t stop laughing soon i’m gunna die
he’s like bringing the whole joint undone
to tell the truth i don’t recall much about that night except how well pavarotti sang
with us working the back up vocals
i do remember that at some point the dude poured me into a taxi and paid the driver
they say he drank till he dropped
management dragged him into a side room
no one stuck him and no one did the rifle.

i never really got to know the big fellow
but i’m sure going to miss him.

Oh, this is just so...
fine. Lowlives Anonymous. So, yes, I can smell them.

A tenor bar?
How quaint!

what is tully?

If you really have to use nigger, I think you should balance it with honky.
We must have a Lenny Bruce discussion sometime soon.

You met him just that once and you're going to miss him? Why? What is missing in your life?

This was a wonderful treat. In a raise-your-glass-drink-to-that-kind of way.

bandit

Tēnā kōrua bandit, Kei te pēhea koe?

Everyone sings better in small cubicles especially after drinking a fine whiskey like Tullarmore Dew.
Wasn't sure about acceptable terminologies, i'll make the change.
What's missing in my life? well if you had the time and you liked whiskey we could discuss the matter at length.

:D

I'm going to miss Pavarotti and the big fellow i never really knew.
Ka kite anō

k

This is how I feel about your writing:

He taonga whakamiharo
bandit

Whisky (oh sorry, there's an e when it's Irish isn't there? The Scottish go dropping e's all over the place) ALWAYS makes the voice better. It's an indisputable fact.

What I like most about this, aside from the incredibly clear descriptions, is the parallel big fellows. It almost seems as if the black man were there just to make the Pavarotti tribute especially memorable -- one hell of a send-off. And you've done it so skilfully that after reading your poem, I miss the big fellow too.