The Bar - a series

Years ago, in the glory days of Hollywood
when hopes ran high, someone
with more moxie than sense
named it Bar None.

Three neon letters in the center are out
but in this tarnished suburb
of sex shops and hookers it seems appropriate,
no one fixes the B--- One.

I'd like to have seen it in its heydays,
tended bar back then but here I am,
in harder times and loving it.

The parking lot is cracked and weedy,
pock marked by wheels and weather.
I know the sink holes, can drive in blind
and still keep my axels.

Not a welcoming sight, all peeling paint
and rusting beer signs
but it's a fit among the dingy businesses
haunted by skinny Asian girls and their
shabby clients .

In spite of all, my regulars are decent folk,
beaten down but buoyant,
like the place itself.