Barstool Pupilage Poem by Stephen S. Yeandle

I have known many a bar, and the best of them all pour their liquor down the same old road; sometimes cobbled sometime paved sometimes not a road at all; promontory sands can lead the way or the quayside timbers of harbors and bays.

Same old friends on barstool watch, in each bar called by a different name. Same good lies on leader lines; same old jokes with an accent change. Each of us cut from the same sail cloth.

A place where laughter and the occasional tear always seem a damn sight more sincere; where the music’s never louder then the voice of a friend until Saturday night when the band comes in.

It’s a church that serves up more then sermons with wine and if you see the Burning Bush, then you have had way too much.

A comforting encouraging place to rack your hat and hang your coat when a cold Yankee wind begins blowing your way or it is just too hot and ninety in the shade.

Where a man lends his ear as well as his voice and it’s not unusual to see the hat pass
if someone’s life is being sacked.

The dodgier bars of my distant past I have now put behind due to my age,
but I got my memories just the same.

It’s a barstool pupilage from end to its end;
if a seat is empty then we’ve lost a friend.

There’s light’s in the rigging so you can see the
deck rising,
when the nights come long.

Don’t straighten the pictures that hang on the wall
They’ll look fine when next you call.

How about a song or a story long.
It doesn’t matter if the voices crack,
or if it's a tall tall tale to end them all.

‘Tis a rented world of this we know;
Each a passenger on the same chartered ship;
We’re subjects’ boys of the artist brush;
A timeless mural that covers all walls.

Much is the same in the best of the bars
that map the coasts of this our
world.