Pinot this and pinot that
This young Grenache is a trifle flat
Better to try and get along
With a slightly older Sauvignon

I sometimes get a trifle low
When dabbling in a cheap Merlot
And so to scare the blues away
Will sip a spendy Chardonnay

But to avoid real ennui
Drink super Oregon Pinot Gris
And let’s be quite awfully frank
That’s much better than Chenin Blanc

But while you sort out your Pinot
Give a break to Grignolino
It’s good, but not the same as
A bold and cheeky Oz Shiraz

And if you want to go very far
Don’t ignore local Pinot Noir
It always sells well on the block
And I wonder who likes Marechal Foch

As I was supping a cute Barbera
At a certain State affaira
Things got quickly very highbrow
When someone mentioned Muller Thurgau

It is no lack of vinous respect
That makes us scorn the best Malbec
And can you find me a single fan
Of that very odd vine, Carignan?

If one must go to a grapey hell
There’s good company in Zinfandel
But if we really must go
Could we have some Nebbiolo?

In the end we all agree
Any wine is better free
But if not free we’ll surely call
Any wine beats none at all!

I thought it would be more romantic than this.
I thought it would strangle me with its strangeness
Walk up to me with a sword in its oriental mouth
And bump into me,
Jolting me out of my occidental seat into the stinking dust of the gutters.
I thought the Mohammed Ali mosque would wrestle me to the ground with its shocking bare immenseness.
I thought my nostrils would burn with the assault of unnamed spice.
I thought my ears would crumble with the muezzins call at noon,
When all the dogs in Cairo enter a canine Koran reading contest.
I thought the pyramids would crush me with too much history and indifference
I thought the city of the dead would turn my gut over in its emptiness and blank windows
I thought the Nile would bewitch me and turn my blue blazer to Joseph’s coat
I thought Tuten Kamens chariot would run over me
I thought so much and I thought so much
That it brought me here where I would not be except for Cairo
For Cairo was a poetic enema
And purged some foolishness from me.
She lightened my load
And with her sister Bombay
Will always be on my cerebral medicine shelf
To take in case of cabin fever.

Scanning from the ground upward over my torso
Reveals an disturbing inventory of dysfunction
brachymetatarsia, in both feet!
Unequal leg length
Reconditioned knees
Atrophied right quadriceps
Hernia Scar
L4 & L5 Vertebrae way too chummy
Are these *******?
Are these jowls?
Gum recession
Moderate gastro intestinal reflux
Three diopter challenge in both eyes
Dermatochelassis, left and right
Scintillating scotoma
Male pattern baldness – rear solar panel developing.
And yet when asked
I reply, Oh, I’m fine! I’m fine.
And you, and you, still love me.

You think I don’t see the stars
You think I don’t wonder at the sky
As I crouch here
Unseen
Unseen but heard
A small chirruping twig of keratin.
I am come quickly to this world
And leave the same
I have some purpose
Which is not to entertain
Or become a romantic icon of your late summer sentiment
I am here solely to exist for a brief moment of beauty
I dare you to claim more.

It is September and my personal fruit fly has returned
From his long vacation,
And is happily perched on the rim of my wine glass
Polity hopping off whenever I reach for a sip,
Quietly resuming his place when I set down my glass.

I can hardly resent his microscopic intrusion
Especially when I find that he and a partner have ended
Their wandering keratinous lives
And are now jointly denting the meniscus of my economy class Chardonnay.