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Jim Simmerman
Uptown Billiards
Open on Christmas
From the point of view of the pocket,
the eight ball won’t go.
From the point of view of the wall,
there are too many hang-ups,
attachments. From the point of view
of the bottles, shoulder to glassy shoulder
on the shelves behind the bar,
the night’s half-full, or -empty, depending...
The man on the stool at the far end
of a place that must be far away
from here—he’s just played
Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane,”
with its pump organ like a funeral dirge,
for the nth consecutive time—clearly
has no point of view, anymore.
Maybe tonight’s the night he’s eighty-sixed
from the future. Or the night
the clack of balls against the rack
is all John Cage. Or it’s just night,
the usual burial ground of stars...
Let’s get two things straight.
First, Uptown Billiards is downtown.
Second, it’s pool, not billiards, here.
But anyone is welcome to whack
the little globes of ivory or plastic
or whatever they’re made of
these days around the kempt felt
lawn of the table; or sit quietly and peer
into the queer, dark mirror of his drink;
or sift the air for one true sign
amid the signs that appear like pigeons
of epiphany in reverie’s piazza...
You think I’ve gone too far? Try these:
“Drink up it makes other people look
more interesting.” “Not tonight
Cosmo—I have a date with an old friend.”
“We can no longer accept checks.” Maybe
that’s why the guy with the backpack
stuffed with no luck or overdrawn
dreams slumped slow-mo
to the sidewalk in front of the door
last week, and had to be wheeled
away by the “Guardian” ambulance team
that seemed not so much
to guard as to roust him.
Or why my friend Big Tom,
who’s bought a book on currency
and origami, is thinking of marketing
his “dime-in” rings. Did I mention
that this is a no-smoking
tobacconist pool hall and bar?
Go figure, as I like to imagine
Euclid might have said, were he asked
how to drop the fifteen off the five
off the seven. And did you know
that billiards is a form of indoor croquet—
its origin uncertain though
likely French (“billiard”
from billart, the stick used to strike
the bille) by way of English
(whence the cue ball’s curlicue tack)—
and that it’s mentioned by Shakespeare
in Anthony and Cleopatra, leading
one early scholar to conclude
it must be an ancient Egyptian sport?
I didn’t either till I looked it up
a little while ago. Then I felt foolish,
as I often do when—having skipped
the prerecs—I take a seat
in history’s classroom. By now
my twelve-step friends must be
shaking their heads and thinking KISS
(Keep It Simple, Stupid!), but
sometimes several rails or an edgy
combination is required to make the shot.
And sometimes, the angle of incidence
and the angle of reflection
are so metaphorically equal it makes
perfect sense there’s a dia de los muertos
skeleton grinning next to the tequilas.
As Jimmy Stewart said in Harvey—
a movie now notorious for its charming
treatment of alcoholism—“My friend
would like to buy you a drink...”
But that doesn’t cut it, exactly.
I think it’s more like what Keith Richards,
who wears a skull ring on his fuck-you finger,
said about Leo Fender: “The stroke
of genius, really, was not his inventing
the electric guitar, but inventing
the amplifier to go with it.”
Or something like what my friend
Richard said: “You’re too old
to die young.” Or maybe it’s just
as Tiny Tim, the cripple
young enough to die young, said—
because it was Christmas,
although it was fiction—
“God bless us, every one.”
JIM SIMMERMAN was Regents’ Professor of English at Northern Arizona
University. His most recent collection of poetry is American Children
(BOA Editions, Ltd., 2005). He passed away in June 2006.
“Uptown Billiards” appears in our Spring
2007 issue.
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