Lost and Never to be Found
Barrooms changing names, remodeling or simply slipping off as the notions of dreamy mystics do while nodding and dozing into when, then but never the now of blurry shot glasses and white halo marks old bartenders never observed with the coughing and hacking house brand anyway. Revelers four, five or deeper filling fresh bricks or phony or siding or cinder blocks across town or merely down the block, maybe digging in where other ginmills failed or got plain and flat-out dead tired. Man, those old, infirm hands and heads quake and filmy eyes sure do Niagara. List the watering holes losing bodies and souls to invading sports taverns bragging legions of local sissy brews and a plague of televisions. Now take the antiseptic Irish pubs that ripped off the pint word from the cheap-assed pocket right sized bottles of down and out but up at the moment whisky? Consider the faithful who witnessed their haunts as deeply rooted as California redwoods disappear or convert to upscale toilets; drinkers that once sat on barstool edges or chose to stand wobbly or elbow to wood, sentries for a dear jukebox tune, cue ball break; reassuring sound of alcohol sipped spilled, chugged or poured before or after the pachyderm pregnancy of silence following tales whether bullshit well told or God honest truth or bound to be but thrilling inside out or upside down and occasionally the last call close cry weeping a sprinkle of paint off the ceiling—
“This tavern has well taken the place
of my runaway wife and dear dead mother.”
Artwork © Ira Joel Haber
Thomas M. McDade is a former plumbing industry computer programmer / analyst residing in Fredericksburg, VA. He is a graduate of Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran.
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. He currently teaches art to retired public school teachers at The United Federation of Teachers program in Brooklyn.
Surface Texture
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