drinking a beer

Here sits a man with a beer in front of him,
both man and beer of ordinary taste, yes, ordinary,
if I may say so, very ordinary indeed. A man,
look at him, there he sits, the beer in front of him,

a man who never ever drank one single pint before
but could be seen in restaurants eating codfish boiled or fried,
in addition frites and a dish of greens with it and a glass of solid wine.
Yet there he sits, with eyes that gleam as porcelain,

aware of nothing else but the pint in front of him.
Toasting on Rome that burnt? on shooting the infamous last of a fat and lonely bird?
Far from history and its phantasms
but not too far from the concept any moment idle may have had,

consuming the beer, pleased as I am to notice it as such, with utmost appetite.
It's not too late for dinner
but here he sits, in a bar, far from any window, eighthies sprout from the hifi,
windows occasionally frame a bus, the latest bird, a female head.

No reading, not even, much too ordinary as it now seems, the concept
displayed on a nearby table, far too early, of the latest news.
Here sits a man and the pint in front of him. His first pint in front of history. How ordinary.
Ordinary, say no more. A toast to the pleasures of history, to the boiled codfish,

to the frites with it, to the emptied glass on the table in front of aynone else, to the last bird
to be eaten. And a promise, one more beer to unfold the far and far and untold.