One day I was on something of a Tom Waits kick. Sometimes I threw in Nick Cave for flavor. Bottom line, I was surrounded by brooding male solitude for hours on a cold day while I worked on assorted studying stuff. Good music though it is, I wouldn't say it's an upper. So I wrote a poem about the sort of character Waits might write about.

"Tom Waits No More"

First cup

Slow night

Peerless I sit at the counter

One cream

One sugar

Down the hatch

Second cup

Time to time I wonder

Ponder

What exactly went wrong

Woke up one morning

Knew something had shifted?

No.

Though long I had not known it

Slowly had a tarnish grown

A subtle rust to consume

That

Which ought be youthful

Me

No cream

Two sugars

Down the hatch

Third cup

"Dear," the waitress calls me

When she asks if I want more

Sweet gesture

For men whose wives despise them

But I don't have the luxury

Of a wife to anger

No cream

No sugar

Straight black

Down the hatch

Fourth cup

Look around

Say 'goodbye'

To Suzanne Vega

And her ordinary world

This is not that diner;

I am not that Tom.

Flask out

One shot

Down the hatch

Fifth cup

The coffee smell surrounds me

Jacket cuffs browned

From this

And many a prior visit

Evenings spent

Gambler that I am

Bled my nights away

Left none for ante

Yet still I sit

At the table

At the counter

One shot

Into black

No sugar

Down the hatch