Full moon moonshine
Drank got drunk stumbling beneath the blurry pair of pale faced moons.
Sip your gloom away the screaming crowd cries swaying.
Slouch down in that old blue lawn chair with your smoke soaked sponge lungs and watch her move so slow above you.
Weeping wine stained lips and tongues paint poetic portraits more precise than presidential speeches, only to wake up aching in the blinding bright hungover morning.
Memory empty like the shattered bottles scattered in the side yard.
Old habits die hard they say, so we drink away another day the same,
Only to wake up again to the next dreary tomorrow.
—Patrick Sangeorzan
Ode to a Shit Hole
Your restrooms stink
Your barmaid’s flabby
Your owner’s a fink
Your winos are stabby
Wanna talk about trouble?
Wanna talk about fear?
Then pour me double
And let’s talk about here
So many better bars in town
And I’d tell you to go to hell
But I just sat down
And I fit in so well.
—Tony Patch
Drinking Raw
You dear strange
little souls
bigger than the world
tied to its nods
dreadfully busy
I drink
I laugh
I run away I run towards
my dear true self
blurred vision
not enough hallucinations
to keep my head above water.
There was nothing left to do
but drink on a freezing London night
on the bus and starving for food and truth
I drink not to starve
I drink to fall in love with lies—
society and lovers and delusions
everything is one and I am many.
I crawl up and down some hills
and mud and planets,
Where is my bottle?
Sore throat and empty stomach
I run to the bus nearly sobered up
brief moments of clarity
painful elements of being
I don’t need to be reminded
the rawness of things
I can see the bus my bottle on my seat
nearly saved I decide not to jump
rawness has taken over
I drink from it.
—Ella Valeree
RUM
I’d toast our inviter
To this debauched all-nighter
But he was arrested
An hour ago
And I’d raise a glass
To the guest of honor —
Alas
He went AWOL
After a shot of pernod
I’d sing praises to the guests
But they’re be praises useless
As I’ve misplaced
Every sodden and miserable one
Is there a single recruit
For an alcoholic salute?
Well there’s the whisky
The gin
And the rum.
—Max Sparber
Feeling Like Being Dangerous
these fingers read
the braille of knives
on the topside
of the scarred bar
where absent slivers
of memories
pool
with spilt whiskey
these days
i must
exhibit
control
i confess
i bite my tongues
all of them
teeth to fist to liquor-limp prick
count yourself lucky
here in this gin-dim lamplight
this balled fist holds
a beer
and not any number
of sharp fuck yous
i’d love to stick in
your ribs
—Taylor Gould
Double Vision
Two of you
is more than enough
for inebriated eyes.
—Chris Butler
A Place at the Bar
I spurn your tables
Those grim islands of exile
Those echo chambers of assholes
Frail ships afraid of the shore
It’s the bar where I belong
Broad and true
The beachhead of heroes
Beer taps like tank traps
And bartenders booming:
“Follow me! I know the way!”
Until you get wounded
Then the fuckers push you
out to sea
like a broken Eskimo.
—Tony Patch
Seasonal Drinking
The Rieslings and mulled merlots
Of Christmas make me blush.
The scotches of deeper winter
Blur me beside a friend’s small fire.
The clear rivering beers of spring
Pour a lazy hour in the breeze.
The juniper daze of gins bring
Summer, and its long, sad light.
—Ernest Hilbert
ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS
Your mother asked me to find you.
She was dressed in that old housecoat,
coughing up huge gobs of guilt.
It was pointless to argue.
The new fallen snow impeded me not
since a booth at the nearest bar
was occupied by yourself.
I saw that you were unhealthy,
had the dimmest of prospects.
You offered to buy me a drink
but the look in your eyes said
you had given up perhaps as far back
as the eighth grade when Miss Clark
asked you to name the largest continent
and you said, “Australia!”
—Colin James
