a critic

I've stepped out of every restaurant.

From elegance to sacrilege and those that require the remedy of murder to cleanse the butcher who calls himself a restauranteur. There are 9 categories and I have walked out of all of them, every kind.

Today is much the same, though the surroundings change and this, truth be told, is what I am after. I don't seek the finest tartar nor gratuity seducing sycophantic service, care not for fresh baked stale or God forbid, Ale. The tangible is only a word, I search instead the perfect atmosphere to relinquish my hurried mind into.

Too many of this and not enough inspiration.

The step I place my girth upon this time is not stone this time but light marble and tile, not terra-cotta but a melange and speckled, like battleship linoleum of the forties. The tile mends the steps to the right and left of its stone railing brother, bringing yellow to the taupe as it meets the centering tiles, scaling like a centipede to the top of a head where I stand flanked by this monstrosity of modern gaelic architecture.

I stand in afternoon light, the sickly kind that fucks the smell of sweet stagnating hops on a Sunday, the same scent that currently lingers behind me, mmm..childhood.

On any given evening I could enjoy this décor, even accept the tenement stench. Today however, I walk out of this restaurant reminded only by the plump barkeep servicing an evening room to tourists. A room that could have tempered the walls with bullshit to prose but instead lays witness to a certain tourist; that with a unique sense of entitlement.

'Open on the end- of morning's hour,
if you crave the drunk-ens sour.
Or postpone well past a dinners quarrel,
to serve well- distinguished myrtle.'