The Terminal Bar

(for Philip Haas) The television set hung in its wire-net cage, protected from the flung bottles of casual rage, is fetish and icon providing all we want of magic and redemption, routine and sentiment. The year-old tinsels hang where an unclaimed no-hoper trembles; fly-corpses cling to the grimy flypaper. Manhattan snows swarm on star-boxed waters, steam trails from warm subway ventilators . . . Welcome to the planet, its fluorescent beers buzzing in the desolate silence of the spheres. Slam the door and knock the snow from your shoe, admit that the vast dark at last defeated you. Nobody found the Grail or conquered outer space; join the clientele watching itself increase.