Moby Dick’s

by John Rocco

I discovered the secret of my bar the other night,
the haunting of the Harbour Inn by the past, a
haunting that pulls me in and doesn’t let me out
until I’ve hit the cash machine for all she’s worth
blasting INSUFFIENCET FUNDS signs to hell.
It’s the bar where I’ve had my greatest fights with myself
like the knocked into blindness boxer Cagney plays
in CITY FOR CONQUEST: I beat the bloody bones
out of the competition only to lose the girl and end
up fingering the old porn mags of the soul. Anyway,
I learned the secret of the Harbour Inn from a local drunk guy:
“Back then it used to be a titty bar called Moby Dick’s.
When I was a kid we used to press our faces up against
the covered windows trying to catch a glimpse of the
titty girls. We used to search the gravel in the parking lot
for when the drunks dropped money.” As he spoke
it all became clear to me. The power of the Harbour Inn
is the strong haunting memory of the titty girls on
their final fiery hunt, apocalyptic booty calls for all.
The next time I go I’ll feed the ghost titty girls
bills for finally killing the renegade sperm whale
inside, drowning in the white stuff
swallowing the white whale and the ships and the ocean
still there crashing on the broken vodka rocks of time.


*John Rocco at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/292819823