Sunday, August 16, 2020

And Now Four Fingers of House Scotch - a Diptych or a Dipstick or something...

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Two Fingers of House Scotch – 
a Diptych or a Dipstick or Something

1. Two Fingers of House Scotch

A bartender should be paunchy and 
     middle-aged
His oldest kid in college, the youngest in 
     jail
Cigarettes in five ashtrays down the bar
His name is Blue; nobody knows just why

If there must be a woman behind the bar
Let her name be Sophie or Maud or Toots
Makeup slapped-on, her hair dyed 
     trash-fire red
She misses stripping at the Flamingo

Frank Sinatra once bought her a drink, 
     yeah, true
But now she kinda has a thing for Blue


2. Six Centimeters of House Scotch

A bartender programmed by MicroPlop
Prototype to a braking system that failed
Disposable batteries smoking, on fire
Its model number is Hey You B-52

It remembers a third-party vendor by 
     name
What is the gender for a robot bartender?
Hey, big spender, is that a credit card?
Or maybe you’re just happy to code me

And the programmer who hacked it out of 
     plot
It’s rather like a lust-crazed coffee pot

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/goodbye-to-bartenders-robots-could-soon-make-your-drink/article_e24e2abf-0b1f-51df-b6b5-b79da01e0ff1.html

4 comments:

Verlie Burroughs said...

What's a dyptych? Sounds high tech.

Lawrence Hall, HSG said...

For Roman times, yes, high-tech indeed - wax and a stylus. Then - and still - a hinged anything made of two flat plates, and also two Orthodox ikons on hinged plates (ikons are always flat), and more recently a cliche' expression for a two-part poem, usually by the sort of people who write "cerulean" when "blue" would do just fine, or who write about "gossamer" while not knowing what it is.

Verlie Burroughs said...

Thanks Professor, good to know. I'm partial to the phthalo blue and tulle myself. I bet I could write a good cliche dyptych too.

Lawrence Hall, HSG said...

"Phthalo?" Hey, kid, watch your language; this is a family site. :)