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Nine months
since My
Last
Drink.

Nine months.

That is
Significant
in an obvious way.

Nine months,
Today.

Nine months since
I last sipped
purposeful poison.
Nine months since
I last heard
the beautiful
tink-tink-tink
of ice
swirling around
into amber
glass
wall.
Nine months since
I last melted
away
into caramel-
and smoke-
flavored
oblivion.
Nine months since
I last felt
the burning hole
in my gut
weep red and raw
and wail for more
More
MORE.

Nine months since.

Nine months today.

Does that make me a new man?
Am I a New Man yet?
Am I re-born?

The bags
under my eyes
are gone
but it's still Me
I see
looking back
from that glass.

It's still Me.
I'm the Same Man.
I just found
some New Pleasures.
And New Problems
to go with them.

Happy Birthday,
Little Man.
Appalachian Alchemists
Weaving Gold from farmer's grist
Whiskey Stills
and Copper Pills
Magick Wyrm cools vapor mists

Shine down from a Whiskey Moon
Silver Gift and Nature's Boon
Corn Cob Wands
and Thumper Pots
Mountain Spells from Summers' June

Lightning flash in jar of White
Burning Soul, distilled delight
Mountain Streams
yield Moonshine Beams
Corn-fed Wizards, dark of night

Wisdom cast in Silver hues
Blessing born of Mountain Dews
Love's Desire
from Smoke and Fire
Ancient kin-folk's hidden brews

Inspiration Distillate
Poet's Draught, inebriate
Charcoal Casks
and Secret Flasks
Of this Spirit, Celebrate
The first stanza popped into my head as I was trying to fall asleep last night, and it's been on my mind ever since for some reason, despite my best efforts to forget it.  The rest of the poem built from there.  I'm actually sober right now, but I guess I miss whiskey more than I realized.
They gave us too many fortune cookies
Twenty or more
What are two people
supposed to do
with twenty fortune cookies?
Three of them
were
different
Not normal
Not like the others
Not really fortune cookies
at all
One appeared to be
only two-thirds
of a cookie
folded in the wrong place
as if the dough
had fallen
halfway out of the mold
in the machine
at the fortune cookie factory
Another had the folded
paper fortune
sticking out one end
like an impertinent tounge
ready to deliver
a raspberry
a paper bronx cheer
rather than prognostication
And the last
the poor devil
the poor, sad little ****
was simply crushed
and broken
crumbled
and useless
Not even a cookie anymore
and no fortune inside at all
I took up these three lost charms
these empty, broken spells
and I cast them
into the trash
because that is where
the broken things go
This whole thing came to me in a flash as I stood at my kitchen counter shortly after arriving home from work.  The fruit of the creative exercise I posted earlier.
What?
What?
What
What
What
What am I putting here?
Are we recording?
Is this thing on?
Are you on?
Are you on to me?
Can anyone see me?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello hello hello
Hey hey hey
What're we doing today?
What's on the menu this evening, sir?
Lust for life
Live to lust
Where did it go?
How old am I?
Do I really want to know?
Why did it happen?
And when did it stop?
Will I ever get it back?
Is it gone for good?
Is there anything left?
Scraps on the table
Crumbs on the floor
No one to play Lover now
The X marks the door
Leave!  Leave, and never return!
But the path is blocked
with accidents
and forgiveness
and everything left unsaid
and we're trapped in here
in the fire
no way out
coughing up the smoke from our hearts as they burn
i'll die for you
i'll die with you
i am going to die with you
i always knew i would
somehow i always knew
and i did it anyways
and i did it again
and again
and i'll do it again
and again
i'll always die for you
i'll always die with you
i'll always be in you
somewhere i always knew
somewhere you never let me go
I will burn there
Forever
Ever After
Always
Sometimes I want to write something for some reason (creative desire, self-destructive pressure, guilt, etc.) but don't have anything in particular to say.  On those occasions, what I'll often do, just to prime the pump or get the juices flowing or whatever other appropriate cliché you want to use, is just starting writing out whatever comes across my mind, stream-of-consciousness style.  Sometimes what I end up producing is strikingly profound.  Most of the times it's just nonsense.  But, either way, it works.  In the end, regardless of whether what I've produced turns out to be beautiful or ridiculous, I always have at least the germ of an idea to write about, and the will to do it; that sense of creative "flow" that is so essential.

The above is an example of one of these exercises in go-with-the-flow writing.  I'll leave it to you to decide whether it is beautiful and profound, or ridiculous nonsense.
Silent Fractals Fall
White Whispers Wash All Away
No Thing Left To Be

Soft Crystals Gliding
to Wrap Us in Fluffy Ice
Inch by Inch by Inch

Succumb to Snow Fall
Smothered, the World Disappears
only Yin remains
my favorite thing
about Winter
the reason I Love it
and the only reason
I even like it at all
is Snow
is Watching the World
Disappear
is seeing Everything I Know
slowly become
a Field
of Perfect White
Our World
that contains
All our Joys
and All our Pains
All our **** and All our Sufferings
All our Love and All our Longings
our Whispers
our Wishes
our Doubts and our Deeds
our Laughs
and our Hopes
and our Everythings
Temporarily Transformed
into Beauty
while we Watch
as we Witness
Nature's Art
falling
in fractal forms
Chaos
in the sky
and all around
Silent Yin
paints the ground
in Perfect White
to reflect the Moon
as Winter's Light
I've got nothing to say
It's an ordinary day
Nothing to write home about
No reason to stay

There's nothing to see here
No deep thoughts to feel here
I'm empty as the mirror's gaze
For all the world to see here

This is just an exercise
Performed for all your judging eyes
Written to determine who
Can wrench the Truth from all my lies

Because I have nothing to say
On this ordinary day
And the rhymes of poetry sometimes
Just get in the way
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