an example of a sober poem, which always tends to predicate a celebratory drink, it's just annoying that it's not yet 4 p.m.

here, an extract from Horace, the ****** was depressed
at this moment in time - he blamed the excess of wine,
and he blamed the excess of sleep,
he even instructed himself to write sober,
as best he could; imagine such days!
imagine how squalid we've become, with theology dead,
we have the voice of dietary requirements hovering over us
(tell that to the double chin of *Jan Sobieski),
i agree that perhaps theology breeds some unfortunate events,
but this constant drumming of health concerns makes
us no better than hamsters on treadmills,
with a constrained realm of thinking and conversation -
like Gary Busey talking about the dual nature of man
using Jeckyll & Hyde at a swish party filled
with drinking games, a conversation starter,
and those on the receiving end not understanding
he wants a longer conversation,
   english tongue dismissing english tongue as japanese -
horrid state... but i mean, imagine the times as of Horace:
too much wine, too much sleep? we should be so lucky,
in this squalor of modernity - there's currently a kid,
a next door neighbour, sitting in the garden...
he's been sitting in the garden for about an hour,
motionless, he's in his early teens, child of divorce...
i might be just watching premature depression,
and another ******* suicide...
you know that he used to ride a bicycle in circles...
yeah, through the service road to our line or gardens
and round and round in the cul de sac...
                 THE EPITOME OF A SETTING SUN...
he didn't ride it elsewhere, traffic phobia? again,
the western problem of premature depression -
like the 19th century and europe's problem of
premature dementia that was a misunderstood diagnosis
for people who people found uncomfortable for
all the reasons that didn't really require medical attention;
oh right, the Horace extract -

sic raro scribis, ut toto non quater anno
membranam poscas, scriptorum quaeque
retexens, iratus tibi, quod vini somnique benignus
nil dignum sermone canas. quid fiet?
at ipsis Saturnalibus huc fugisti sobrius.
ergo dic aliquid dignum promissis. incipe. nil est.

- translation: you write little, to the year of
parchment you demand hardly a quadrupling,
you write little, you strike-out more, you correct,
angry with yourself, that from excess of wine
and sleep the satyr in you became anaemic (weak,
contrary to belief that albino too would be
a befitting one word metaphor, no, albino wouldn't
be befitting). tell me, why? in Saturnalia you ran away,
you can't even write under the correct date,
then at least write sober, as best you can.
nothing thereof.
                                 i.e. he won't stop drinking, and he won't
                                 give up precious sleep -
                                 that's what nil est implies.

p.s. the anaemic v. albino metaphor debate is why
poets make terrible translators, they someone always
shove something original in, and that's why translators
will make terrible poets, for the Libra reason of
equal counterweight.