A sommelier was known to whine
at pairings made with pork.
The shoulder was in fact divine,
so tender, lightly forked.
Yet she was deign to recommend
a cab or chardonnay.
Esteem I’d had came to an end
though, just the other day;
I saw her swilling Boone’s Farm wine,
complete with plastic cork.
They were swilling blood from the road
into the gutter,
policemen with buckets
of cold water.
And all I could think of was you
and how you had left me.
It was not your blood but someone else's
that the curious had crowded to see.
You were walking, talking, laughing
elsewhere in this city
and I know I might see you someday,
which would be a pity.
I found myself wishing and hoping
this blood had been part of you.
Your going would shock me, of course,
but such shock would soon pass through.
They were swilling blood from the road
into the gutter
and had it been your blood and you dead
such thoughts would not matter.
(25 April 2023)
(written 1970s, then lost, then recalled and reconstructed)
I Wish I Were Irish
For the gift of gab, the blarney stone I’d kiss
Upside down by ankles dangling, I’d do this
A story-teller I’d surely be
Risking life and limb ‘tis me
To spew flattery among every laddy and miss
Like the pirate queen Grace O’malley of seafaring clans
Before she sheard her long hair and designed plans
Emerald eyes and strawberry blond locks
Lads swoon by the dozen in flocks
I’ll be in the Dunguaire Castle made by the O’Hans
Plow through O’Conners novel “The Last Hurrah”
Party on Paddy’s Day, shoutin’ Erin Go Braugh!
Feast on authentic Irish lamb stew
While swilling pints of Guinness brew
Peddling my bike up the mountain, of Ballyhoura
I’d sing "Carrickfergus" an Irish folk song
Become a Celtic flutist and chime along
A tenor belts out “Galway Bay”
“Danny boy” heard at the pubs all day
Riverdancing through the heather all night long
… is a drunkard
Swilling vintage regret,
Tears falling for undared dreams,
Anger spewing over unrequited love.
… is endless replays of yesterdays
With circular insightful wisdom
As likely to reverse life’s ills
As scrubbing dirt off hills.
… is stolen joy in the gloom
Of memory’s moldy greenhouse
Where fancied success blooms, hiding
Mocking hyenas and nightmare roaches.
… is a pustulated soul
Hunkering in a mental bunker
Sniveling nose dripping a green past,
Dreaming victory will roar as thunder.
… is Salvador Dali droop
From the fringes of reality
Or a joy until truth
Flushes it to a cesspool.
The brown bear
During Yeltsin years when he sold Russia down the river
People in the west loved the brown bear
we patronized the Russian as vodka swilling village idiots.
The cuddly bear died, and a steely-eyed fox to the helm
and the Russians was no longer cuddly.
The Russian federation was no longer willing to play
the game ascribed by the western press no longer willing
to be pushed around and laughed at.
Putin, the fox, turned Russia into a modern state that has
a modern army that is powerful if stirred by the west.
Russia wants peace but does not like the encroachment
by NATO/US, that is like Indians in western movies
encircling the wagons.
Putin, president of Russia, vilified by the western media
and the EU, ain’t forgiving
even the capitalists know this and stalk carefully.
Its the breathing of relax ! which mingle mixes beneath the roof of tamping rain drops, beyond the road salt stained glass, i know ! Its cold, of passing wheels, at early o'clock and the spitting, in crimson, spiralling, crackling music of the metamorphosis into charcoal of long past,chopped very dry logs; early o'clock cloaks me in the revolving whir of the fridge, i cannot hear the spiders feet! although he has eight scurrying in the scullery, or the plop of the tea bag and the bubbling of hot, dropping swilling and brown.
It is the gentle of Bozz and Betti snoring and my goose bumped arms scaffolding a heavy head and drooping eye lids, ah,comfort arrives in many clothes sizes and times.
But, this comfort slips from key white to key black, the dripping morning of disappointed tunes and stamping feet, blurs under the flap of the breezing yawn of letterbox joy, just a jumble of jigsawed letters missing from an eternal alphabet, i am not liking this day, to evening and death.
glare eye to eye
gin ship lie stuck
spent idle lost
11/25/20202
Than-Bauk Me Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: charles messina
A Than-Bauk poem consists of 3 lines.
Each line consists of 4 syllables.
The last syllable of the 1st line,
The 3rd syllable of the second line
And the 2nd syllable of the third line.
I love men and women who stand for what is right.
Most cave to evil, thinking to be part of a group is true might.
Mouse minds untrained in human transformation.
Follow media like sheep, drunk on boarding trains at the swilling
No Brains Station!
11-11-2020
With a sweet swish and a swirl
Six silly swilling simple swans swam in sight of Sweden town.
IT DOES NOT SAY THAT!
Perils of trying to change any words
During the reading of a three-year-old’s favorite book.
This merciless invasion
A wolf in incubation
Deadly maturation
Mandatory isolation
Fear upon fear amplification
World-wide gargantuan
A new generation
Of lives in detention
Many made concessions
Amongst frustrations
Swilling in the stagnation
Of nature's destruction
Unmerciful predation
No retaliation
Where is salvation
On this train of extinction
Oh God help the nations
Escape this damnation
Save us from ruination
And give us resurrection
The sea was in a beer swilling mood.
Peroni guggling in frothy blasts.
Swirling, white and foamy, cool gulps hitting the back of my throat found my feet and shins and knees.
Pulling back sucking my feet into sandpits, playing for fun.
I savioured the taste and watched pitcher after pitcher roll white-turquoise and crash forward.
The sky kites out flying hazy in Atlantic spray.
Then a new sea, silky silver grey tongues, mermaids licking their young with contented ease against soft warm sand.
A gentle calm using light to carve pictures of dancing candles. Like a theatre with many actors, of kings, storms, fairies, pirates and maidens these oceans pick to play. I watch and drink the beer served with ice rays of bubbles moving in and out, semi circles of intoxication.
Today the sea was in a beer swilling mood.
silly sequoia slumbering
meager mists mooing
callous clouds clustering
voluptuous vibes vying
tempted twigs twiddling
salient sleep swilling
spooky silver silhouette
pulling pulpy pests
contracting cautious crrsts
lousy clouds lurching
gaunt glottis grooving
gigantesque syllables dripping
mystic mountain moaning;
sleep's spell swigging.
19:12:05:08:17
In an imaginary world where believe is everything,
there existed a dress of a magic perception,
for any occasion or who you meet it changes to its occasion.
Like the individual feeling you sense in that circumstance,
giving the eye of the beholder a dress of perceptive romance.
The dress always in perfect fit and accessories included,
the soul knows that she is perfect and the dress has to reveal it.
But as the soul matures only by experience,
the dress struggles with making perfect decisions.
The compromised dress in the wrong place,
and with whom not at the right time in sensitive space.
Tensions touching the weakest button,
the swilling chest of motions gets the boat rocking.
The top button jumps into the reflected image,
splitte personality without knowledge.
One cannot blame others, they acting like a mirror,
making the perfected image more queerer.
Every smile you get is usually a compliment,
creating reflections in multitude consent.
Every soul in its multiple reflection dress,
many mirror souls making beauty timeless.
Large sways of constant do
Swilling my mind around by you
Masking port of ships slavery
With loves belief, not very savoury
Body mind and soul in crisis
Butterfly flight, begin metamorphosis
Casting out to fields afar
Drifting life into futures scar
Spring its life new
Body, mind and soul renew
Action such a coup
Said this is not you
Blind knowledge outside
Looking deep will reside
Free to be, soul revived
Linked souls, I have survived
New journies path, two souls together
Sparkle with dust of pasts director
Swirling mist of futures joy
Into time, my soul employ.
I don't feel like doing a thing today
Sounds lazy you may say
I don't care what's been said
Not getting out of this bed
My clothes are wrinkled and hair is messed
Crawled to the loo, not getting dressed
Flopped on the couch, slapped on the TV
Pigging out, swilling beer, getting nothing out of me
Not going to work, not doing a chore
My feet are not hitting the floor
You may say this all sounds crazy
How can a grown man be so lazy
You say this is no way to act
Let me tell you friend this important fact
Here's how I get away with such fooling around
The wife is on business out of town
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