3 minutes to midnight…
the barkeep tends
to emptiness

8 Responses

  1. Mike Schoenburg I Says:

    six windows
    two tellers
    the line grows longer

    PS: I closed ^up a band-bar
    last night on Atlanta Avenue!

  2. Gary Michael Dault Says:

    puns don't work in haiku

  3. Kathe L. Palka Says:

    A bee
    staggers out
    of the peony.

    Basho
    translation, Robert Hass

  4. Alan Summers Says:

    .
    .
    Wow!
    .
    .
    3 minutes to midnight…
    the barkeep tends
    to emptiness

    —KYLE SULLIVAN

    As a former barman and bar manager I can relate to this.

    I was a restaurant bar manager so just before midnight could be quiet.

    Brilliant and suitably disturbing phrase:

    the barkeep tends
    to emptiness

    I am reminded of the Night Hawks in a coffee bar, but this time one of those odd almost off the mainstream public places, where there's no more than one or two customers, yet the venue still keeps going.

    Alan

  5. magyar Says:

    Kyle, here is my humble echo… in complement your fine, time conscious senryu.
    __ Mayhaps the day's "final sip," is the "first sip" of each new day; time counts the heart beats.

    a day's end
    found in this pendulum's swing
    the final sip

    _m

  6. magyar Says:

    (in complement >to< your fine)

  7. magyar Says:

    __ I view the above as senryu, not haiku; but then, I have… no credentials.

  8. seaviewwarrenpoint Says:

    Yes! This brought me right back to slow nights working in a French bistro in Belfast when I was a student. You busy yourself tending to silly little tasks like folding napkins or re-polishing glasses to make the night pass quickly. I like this. At the risk of sounding like I'm copying Alan Summers, tending to 'emptiness' reminded me of Hopper's work 'Nighthawks'!

    marion

Leave a Reply