The Victory Cafe
Forty minutes before the bus from Omaha rolls up,
At five oh five AM, I crack the first egg,
On the grill at the Victory Cafe,
The owner, Gracie, she’s owned the place since 1943,
She stares at me from the register – a freshly lit Bel Air in her lips,
But I am responsible and I know my eggs.
“It’s Kool inside” says the sign on the front door,
Two farmers walk in, in tin cloth coats and four buckle boots,
They order the morning special and talk about oats,
They talk about the price of hay.
They smoke Camel cigarettes and they order up…
Three more eggs hit the grill – and half a slab of bacon.
I light a king sized Viceroy.
A trucker from Missouri takes his place at the counter,
He’s fresh off an all night run to the River, and he wants coffee,
He orders a tinfoil pack of No Doze and tells Rita the waitress,
That he makes two hundred fifteen dollars a week,
And if she ever wants to leave her old man – that silent pacer,
The usher at the Antioch Baptist Church, and run away,
To Saint Joe, where she could have such a fine life raising babies,
And raising hell in the shadow of the Missouri River,
That she should say so.
Not to beat around the bush.
But Rita is quiet and she’s a shy girl,
She hasn’t the need for the Missouri River wild life.
She is quite fine at the Antioch Baptist Church.
Ed's end of the planet books 
real people are the best material
sometimes they aren’t all that believable
stranger than fiction
Yes, that’s for sure. Thanks for stopping by and reading. Most of these poems that I have been posting are several years old. I hadn’t intended to put so many up here, but I have been so busy with my paying job that I haven’t had time to blog about things that are on my mind – like this Government shutdown.- maybe later in the week. Thanks again for taking the time to comment!!
Like this poem and all your poems…They are real…not made-up and ‘affected’….You Mr. P are the “real deal”…Shutdown not worth your time or ink…As you know, I am a Catholic nun, so I can’t express what I really feel about those chaps in DC…but y’all can fill in your own blanks!
N from Philly
Thank you for your kind words, Nancy. I do hope that I am the “real deal” as most of the poems that I have written in my life have been based upon fact and actual people that I have known. This one is no exception.