Bar (Harbor) Poem

There’s a bar in Bar Harbor that ‘s kind of scary sometimes (not that I would know or have visited such an establishment). And it’s not the one named in this poem. There’s a beautiful rocky coastline in Acadia National Park easily accessible by the Park Loop Road (I've been there though), from which you can watch the lobster boats. Son Rivers added the two together and came up with 24 lines, 4 stanzas, written in trimeter.

The Drink

A lobster boat sails circles
on the waves expressing
boundless but temporary
ownership of ocean—
its owner only draws
these rounds to make a living.

While downing Early Times
with Mooseheads in the Thirsty
Whale the other night,
he griped about that very
matter: "The depths we go
to net one lousy buck."

He didn't need to sketch
Nathaniel any details.
Each one inherited
his business, knowing almost
everything there is
about those bitter waters:

pilots lost at sea,
sternmen tangled in
a length of line while gear
drags them below, wholesale—
or thick-skinned creatures trapped
within that stinking Whale.

~Son Rivers 2005

Oh, and one end rhyme.