Bart Edelman

At the Beauty Bar

 At the Beauty Bar,

Where no one misorders

A drink of choice.

Doing so would be rude—

Full of spite and consequence,

And what patron deserves that?

Cosmetically speaking, of course,

There’s enough eye makeup

To overshadow the clientele.

Still, you can’t bluff your way

Out of a bad martini,

No matter how much blush

You’ve applied, cheek to cheek.

It’s almost last call.

What can you possibly show

For an evening’s worth of work—

This occupation you’ve employed

Since finding the congregation,

Toasting one margarita after another,

Until your luck’s at ground zero.

Best to call it a night.

Taxi home, for safety.

Remove any remaining mascara.

Hope tomorrow’s first cocktail

Contains the black olive

You swore you never desired.

Who Goes With Fergus?

 Don’t know, never did.

Wish I were more certain.

You’d have to ask Yeats—

Mystical warrior of the realm—

But he’s past the summoning stage,

Or so it seems, these days.

Perhaps, though, given proper cues,

He would kindly pay a visit,

Explore the deep wood’s woven shade,

Steady the ground we walk,

Even instruct school children,

As Maude Gonne scurries about—

One classroom to another.

However, it’s really W.B. we desire,

Beneath the disheveled wandering stars,

Tucked under his delicate wing,

Lifting us closer to Fergus,

Dancing across an emerald shore.

Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023.  His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others.  He lives in Pasadena, California.