At the Indie Café

Rain drizzling doggedly;
a bracing wind drives leaves in haphazard patterns;
branches nervously sway
as if to the horn-laden beat melody
wafting from the café’s tinny sound system
with a rhythm more infectious than typhoid;
even the ancient Acadian in the corner
taps his scruffy runners against the oft-trodden oak floor.

Chipper, cheery waitresses
defy the woeful gloom of the weather,
buzzing and bustling across the room,
balancing steaming bowls of rooibos and ramen
for veterans in the venerable art of conversation,
while solitary screen addicts crunch dried kale.

The ultra-cool biker with mud-colored eyes
breathes teasingly
upon the nectarine-hued neck of his kohl-eyed playmate,
as she smiles and shivers with surreptitious lust
amid plumes of cigarette smoke.
I stretch my arms, spy out the scene,
and know I’m home.

 

Artwork © Ira Joel Haber

 

Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copyeditor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He holds a master’s degree in interdisciplinary humanities from California State University – Dominguez Hills. His interests include vegetarian cooking, the Russian language, Victorian horror fiction, wrestling, and 1960’s pop music. “At the Indie Café” was first published in Eunoia Review.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer,photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows bothin the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 230 on line and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Pollock-Krasner grants, the Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc.