At The Bar

[Artguy]

Saturday afternoon, the sun making a meager attempt at showing it's face, just spent a pile of dough on art supplies , on my way to my studio first to slake my thirst in the bar across the road the re-done Drake Hotel...once was one of those bars that had a constant smell of stale beer with crooked pool table the bar tender always with one eye on ya ready to pounce...whisky served in part washed glasses...ladies with worn heeled shoes and torn hose on vericosed legs sat at the bar...a few flop rooms up stairs smelling of primordial sex and the clap..windows that the sun on the best days couldn't penetrate....now 30 years since last I would frequent such a place...the street lined with art galleries... a new condo going up...I walk into the lobby a receptionist in her hippest black attire greets me with an anonymous smile...the walls strewn with work by once famous member of painters 11...with whom I had loud stoned arguments...now he lies silenced in his grave....the bar all chrome and served by beautiful young lady also in hippest black...cute doe eyed visage top by a perfectly fit black touque....but next to me he sits...a remnant of then with his bottle of labbatts 50 ...spotty grey beard and long unwashed hair to match ...about my age I figure...may have shot a game of eight ball with him 30 years ago..now a bug crawls on his stained white sock...slippers on his feet...and I this artist without a stitch of black....nameless haunting the drake...upstairs the same rooms....heavily secured....called crash pads...throw back my micro brew...looked my neighbour in the eye as he continued his conversation with himself....and out those new glass doors to the new street...leaving behind old and new in a dream...

[Doreen Peri]

man... what a picture you paint!

you can never go back, they say... but yeah you can ... and you did.. and you took me back with you.

You should write a novel, kurt.

I would love to read a novel by you.

[mnaz]

what a great painting. it is not easy to convey in words the feeling of any place, or a "cosmic" connection to a place, or what it once was. you had me right there with you. thanks.

[Artguy]

Thanks all...it was just a few words that fell off my fingers the day after...me write a novel? Tried once, I just don't have the will and energy for it...lately it has been hard enough for me to pick up a paint brush...