Dodging the Silence
The neon glow
Shines upon us
As we sit belly to bar.
The lot of us conversing
But none of us
Are listening.
We talk just to
Break the hovering silence.
It’s the silence that
Leads to thinking
And that leads to reality.
And the reason we are here
In the first place
Is to stay
The fuck away
From that.
—John Murray
Drunk Messaging
Email messaging is far from a boon
For the writer who’s three sheets to the wind,
Who rambles off a missive like a loon
Then clicks on “send” with no chance to rescind.
And when one is a grammarian sot
With a strong tendency towards pretension,
Who writes with care whether shitfaced or not,
Later claims of drunkenness are questioned.
Many relationships have I snuffed out
When deciding it was time for the truth
And ill advised invectives I did spout,
My self-censor drowned in gin and vermouth.
Heed my advice drunken writing brethren
Turn off the PC and pick up a pen.
—Doug Manion
Extermination
When you live like I live,
you come to accept certain truths:
days dragged under with the anchor,
empty bottles,
loss of privacy,
Episcopal neighbors,
and that God-forsaken sun.
You shake that shit off,
you pry the bedbugs from your body,
piss a stream of fire,
comb your hair,
and fake it for one more day.
Then in those sweet hours of the night
you sip divinity from red plastic cups,
speak without hesitation
greet Satan at the door
take his booze
and tell him the party is two houses down.
Around you is the smell of extermination,
the horror of empty bars,
loveless women,
and disobedient dogs.
With this bottle I grant you amnesty.
Drink to your hearts content,
rent a big apartment,
and pay for it with drugs and art.
—Maxwell MacDonald
True Love Trumps Dogma
A good Catholic drunkard named Finn
Fell in love with a bottle of gin
He sought dispensation
To marry the potation
But had to settle for living in sin
—Dirk Manley
My Bar
My bar is a place I can go to think,
To sit alone and eat and drink,
And drink, and drink, until dawn
If I please; Or at least until I vomit
On my shoes and knees and counter-top,
And they kick me out, and on all fours,
I crawl to the alley, and sleep under
The filth of transients and whores,
Until I awaken with the city’s early sounds;
Cars honking and people bustling,
And the sun rising over what these eyes deem,
As hands down the greatest sight;
My Bar, in the early morning light.
—Dan Philo
O’Toole’s
Jamie was working on a multilayered concoction
when I sidled up to the bar.
If Hugh Hefner kept a medieval alchemist
at the Playboy Mansion, it would be Jamie.
It just hasn’t been the same since they made her wear
that blue polo shirt instead of more revealing apparel.
I can’t even see her tattoo anymore.
It hardly seems worth coming in,
but where am I going to get my Guinness fix
at happy-hour prices?
Keith, a fellow Katrina refugee,
was holding down the bar.
His fluffy-duck baseball cap was on the floor,
and he looked to be about twenty dollars
into an exotic-shot binge.
He was simultaneously complaining about his boss
and explaining how it was just a matter of time
before Tampa would be obliterated by a hurricane.
Someone at the bar made the mistake
of mentioning The Ramones:
the result was Keith and I breaking into
an unsolicited and utterly unnecessary rendition of
“I Wanna Be Sedated.”
Now that I’d worked up an appetite . . .
Jamie, would you be so kind as to pour me my dinner?
On the O’Toole’s menu, Guinness is an entrée.
—Ralph Aquila
The Green Fairy
Alone for the night, the green fairy sits with me,
She fills my stomach, capturing my thoughts.
Holy spoon resting upon the lip of a glass,
Sugar cube atop it’s sacrificial altar.
The fairy blesses each granule, laying rest beneath the surface
Emerald filling the glass, remnants within the sugar.
Behind stands a pillar candle, melted wax formed in drops down the curve
The flame is brought to the sugar, capturing and setting it alight.
Blue flame engulfs the sacrificial cube, the candle returned to it’s place
The holy spoon holds the delicate fire, as it withers away.
Faint bubbling, as drops of burning sugar fall into the elixir,
Before the fairy is purified through a brief wash of icy water.
Taking a sip, feeling the warmth of the baptism of fire,
The mind is at rest, watching the flickering candle flame,
As it begins to reflect upon this life
Through sombre eyes; the fairy within
—Lee Johnson
Wanted: Coherent Allies
Loud, drunk wench, engaged in
inarticulate political discourse
Why, Christ, why
does she have to be on my side?
—Seamus Dundee
Whiskey Wisdom, #113
If there’s wisdom in whiskey, I’ve not found it;
Just stupor and forgetfulness inside.
But also happiness—no way around it;
There’s bliss in that amber, Lethean tide.
An unexamined life’s not worth the living,
Said Socrates, who faced death without fears;
It’s true, but my exam is more forgiving
of foibles and failures after three beers.
Oh give me booze instead of introspection,
Distill my doubts in bottles, not in verse;
Abet me in this rational deflection
And, if not better, things will be no worse--
Now there’s a truth, sunk in this G & T,
Greater than dreamed in your philosophy.
—Scott Standridge
Submit poetry to:
poetry@moderndrunkardmagazine.comPostcards From Skid Row Archives
