'Tis another sunrise, bright and yellow.
Yet the world that holds me feels so hollow.
My ev'ry breath is but an empty cask.
Yet ev'ry step I take bears a full flask.
Ev'ry thought that I hold makes the ground quake.
Ev'ry conviction makes the wide sky break.
The path I chose remained a cracked tankard.
Yet my journey is a brimming tankard.
All certainty dissolved, and naught remains.
Each thought gives birth to thought in endless chains.
My life is but a bottle with no hole.
I am the sot who wholly lacks control.
Who am I now to stay here, bound in doubt?
To drink, to think—and still to go without?
This is an ode to John and his iconic bucolic pub "the Golden Smog" up in Stockton on Tees..
What makes a proper pub?
Unity in a community hub
Immunity from the hubbub
With others shoulders rub
Opportunity you can’t snub
Our own homegrown club
Bubbling banter from the bar
In the cellar need a stellar star
Other views & hues don’t scar
Ales & tales so far above par
No-one argues or does spar
Clinking & sinking another jar
John a helluva fella just say ta
No bigotry is all he does ask
No hate lurking behind a mask
A sisyphean or herculean task
In the company of others bask
No sip from a hidden hip flask
Cheers to beers from the cask
Where the weekend will begin
Delaying within escape the din
Time to spend with ken and kin
Getting you through thick & thin
Whetting our whistles.. chin chin
A third place where a grin will win
To miss this bliss is a cardinal sin
A home from home just staying in!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One flicker left—the dark inhales,
a hungry throat without a sound.
I strike: the spark’s brief, brazen wail,
a sun too small to hold the ground.
But oh, the shadows flinch, just once~
as if they too recall the light,
before the black seals tight its cask,
and I become the endless night.
They begin sipping then supping the Best on cask
Charlie the legend of the barley does a guest ask
What are you up to for the rest of the weekend?
Well regulars would often become a good friend
With a big grin..they swig & say…not a lot mate
Won’t go far…in the offing a spot of bar mat flipping
Will be here till late relishing & cherishing your beer
Gags & chinwags spin laughing gear quaffing just staying in…
“Give me my glasses”…..
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
aged 74 who immediately after died of a heart attack
There it comes and here I go
the Halley’s comet streaming past
millennium's of existence,
glowing in the dark skies above
Mississippi, like the day it did when
I was born. Stories, fables and laughs
and all! Now it is my final call! The comet waits
with its chariot of haze and glows, but it
has room for just one more,
I shall journey with it past the galaxies,
for millions of years, through eternity, before I get
another call- to be something that nature
may choose. Right now just give me the glasses,
so I can survey the skies for my travel pass,
to re-enter that domain of eternal preservation,
leaving my mortal cask to merge with earth,
but my heart shall resonate with Tom and Huckle,
their joys and pranks worth a chuckle,
while I make my way to the stellar state,
and in there, no life, no death, no fate.
Purple envelope
sealed with dried red grape secrets
folded with ferments
hidden like wine in a cask—
waiting to expunge its words
Purple grape-skins torn
the bruises dark, stinking with hate
postponed and withheld—
seething, fermenting inside,
to pop when eyes are uncorked
Fingers hesitate—
lingering on paper's seam
as if it might bleed
mauve ink, staining memories
with bitter taste of tannin
Who dares to open
the violet-purple skins
threaded like tendrils
curled poised to strike the reader—
staining lips and tongues blood-red
The envelope waits
as a bruise waits for pressure—
purple concealing
the truth of what lies within
with promise and a warning
in a cursed invitation.
to tender the vines
they weep merlot tears
so merlot to hold
they ferment our years
to tender the cask
they reap merlot tears
to bottle and hold
they ferment for years
too tender the cask
they reap merlot fears
no merlot to hold
they ferment our tears
A brew-loving guy from Kilkenny
is mad! His wife spent their last penny--
on a cask of green beer?
No, she hopes to bring cheer
with green cookies~~poor clueless Jenny!
I am tired of me
No, the world won't see
I wish I was free
I desire my dreams
I hide all the screams
Life is a hard task
I evade a cask
I wear a fake mask
I try to do norms
Tick boxes and forms
I get caught in storms
How do others win?
Do they also sin?
Vomit to be thin
My Mother is wise
Stop my lies to rise
Bacchus confronts us in a shady place, A tangled grove, and he, astride a cask. Gross limbs and belly, small besotted face, And lips pursed to the uptilted flask. A buxom dryad, white against his tan, Attends him (sturdy spirit o' the trees) ; As free a woman she as he a man, But gracious-limbed enough to please. Sportive, she smoothes his unambrosial hair, And binds a ruddy vine about his brows; A filet fit for marry-makers, where the wild and tendrilled berry grows. But stay, dryad, what need hath Bacchus' head of leafy trimmings ? Twist a leaf or two and wreathe his hardy nudity instead~ Garland him largely, Dryad, do !
And comes the time, oft many sought with blinded eyes that squint into the dark, searching for that in tight grasp with faithless hopes that it be found.
No grudge shall I bear as a traveler his mug, that holds within above a cracked below, a drink for the voyage whose starting is the ending to the eye and mind.
In the open sky I shall hide all that has been, is and no longer morrow.
To remind a scribbler to forget friends and foes. For the mind’s cask shears upon such thought of great appeal.
My time.
To no longer will, but bend, or even break. To be deaf to all, with only hearing for one with a deafening whisper. As the tongue exits its cave, loud be my scream as the bewitching hour.
Search no more.
By your follicles, you would tell as words deny you might… of this scribbler you once grappled in sight.
As he dissolves in his dry ink, I beseech thee again.
“Search no more”.
if I'm gonna turn the water on got to right twist the spigot
6/16/2024
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2024©
NOT PLONK
A well-corked bottle lets nothing escape
Subtle added tastes from an oaken cask
I’ll sip and enjoy this fine cultured grape
Is a well-rounded body too much to ask
A label removed where words are hung
What other joys lurk behind this mask
Flavours still swirling around the tongue
Notes of warm sunshine one can detect
It’s as if somehow, a soft melody is sung
They say that terroir has a major effect
But frost will always have the last word
That late autumn sunshine can’t correct
A sommelier should know all, I suspect
Which wines to dismiss, which to select
Head down, ear pricked in curiosity,
The vizard of sleep dancing across
Plump, pink, tired cheeks.
The thump-thump-thump,
A familiar beat, pounds against
Almost-resting ears.
A sound locked in memory,
One that weathered the storm
Of a troubled infant’s sadness.
Not-quite sleeping, eyelids fluttering,
She reaches out for the warmth
Of mother’s hand.
An exchange of heat awakens
Tactile memories of that same touch
From years long gone.
No longer an infant, nor a child,
But secure in the lock-and-key embrace
Of maternal love.
In mind’s eye, those hands are unchanged;
Adorned with gold and sapphires,
Marked by a life lived well.
Blonde gave way to grey,
But the beauty of her youth only aged
Like a cask of the finest pinot blanc.
Tired eyes open once more,
Graze mother’s face carefully
And remember every detail.
Mother’s safety is remembered once more,
Tightly wrapped in the memory
To look back upon once more.
For Mama’s birthday.
Enduringly left the spiritual task
Of praying for what Catholics ask:
A fresh day in her wondrous breakthroughs bask,
An open-it-and-one-finds-rich food flask,
For lovers of the fabric: Good Damask,
The wisdom for proofs statue is no mask.
None prays that she outrage owners of cask:
Saints who smoke and you can’t its question ask…
It’s been a back-dated virginity:
If one tastes sex, flees one’s virginity;
There’s no answering-it opportunity;
The pregnant now faces maternity:
A sacristy that gets more decorative,
This no big deal to judge pejorative…
At one point wanted some word with her son,
While he had devotees in the sun;
And it was time Christ crushed Monopoly:
The more hateful than Oligopoly…
No disputing this: some film editing
But a camera for Mary fitting.
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