This American Life

God, we need these drinks
just to forget or deaden
how lately this bar’s gotten
loud as war
and nearly as deadly.  

Half the patrons
screaming, half sobbing, 
no one secure, all drunk
on some substance or idea,
and both are made mostly
of bile licked
by the sour taste
of flop sweat.  

This rowdy dive
is where we keep 
our dreams,
our nightmare,
our curse.  
It’s an abusive little church
with a pulpit
brimful of  paranoid sermons.

No one likes it here
but it’s where 
we keep finding ourselves;

maybe we’re in thrall to a God
we don’t even recognize.