"Man is the alembic of art"
That's what Mr. Thoreau said.

A - L - E - M - B -I - C

Hold it right there!
Just what the hell is that?

Well, OK in a word, an alembic is a still.

So the man at the pond is telling us,
making whisky and poems is the same deal.

Take a *** of sludgy words,
boil is so it shoots out the cap
and into a tube.

With a little luck
only good stuff condenses in the beaker -
"Thoreau-ly" purified.
Hopefully it's a good year.

Still, (sic) your verbal whisky can be
no better than the sludge you start with.

Bottoms up!

© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard