There is an innocence in the first beer of the night.
when the mind is still free to breathe
and the legs free to walk
and the eyes free to see
and the heart beats on its own
As the cap twisted off
and my *** got comfortable in
the chair that knows all to well
how long this hell would last
I knew that the innocence would end fast
Time seems to fly by
while you sit and
do nothing more then
observe it
And I crave that dialog
that swims from my eyes
to my mind, like this secret
symphony played only for me
But you see, everyone sees
the same things that I see or
you see
This symphony has always been
that for all of us
but some of us listlessly rummage
in the darkness that anger breeds
Like seeds tainted with the devils
come it penetrates the hardest of
shells and births the **** we see in
the shadow of societies twisted ties
I’ll never understand why it is that
I am so enamored with watching this
destruction cross my mind but I am
and in the end it will too, end me.
It’s after the second or third beer that you become
cognizant of that candle that’s burning
in the front of your face
It smells like ginger and reminds you of
your grandma’s house for some reason
But everything reminds you of your grandma
when you’re into the bottle deep and wishing
you’d spent more time listening to the words
she tried so hard to give you
You remember the times that she wrote you
letters when you lived in a house with no
cable television, no phone, no VCR, **** there
wasn’t a computer let alone the internet
So forget about Tumblr or Facebook or
emails or any other way to avoid the mutiny that
mankind has become
Walking the plank was real and
no one wanted to be told to take that walk
so everyone acted like men and women
with respectful fingernails and clean socks
that could be seen when pant leg
raised when sitting down for dinner with
your neighbor
I always wondered what she would have done
if she’d been born instead of me
with all these tools
and resources at her disposal
She was a smart cookie for
the time she grew up,
writing poetry on a ledger that
time has forgot
And here I am just waiting for the
garbage man to pick me up
because I never had time to drive over to
her house before or after happy hour
always told her I tried and that’s not
a lie
You see there is a rush hour for drunks
like me
The traffic is stand still and
bitter and you can see the pain in the way
the driver in front of you clenches the steering
wheel, hunched over and ready to drive through
as many cars as he or she has too
Just for that dollar off a drink he or she
is going to drink regardless of the time
or deal they make
And it’s about that time that my right foot
begins to shake because I remember that
I am nervous even when I am three beers into
a black out night.
I’m never safe and you aren’t either
so says the sigh as I finish number three
and order number four
And one more before I hit
the door and cross the street
to buy the party treats for the
rest of this ******* night
Eighteen beers and a pint of
Hemingway.
Eighteen beers and a pint of
Bukowski.
Eighteen beers and a pint of
Celine.
Eighteen beers and a pint of
Wallace.
So I settled my tab and I shook the old man’s
hand who had sat and told me about all the
various things that could break a man
I checked them off one by one in my
head like a baseball card checklist that
at one time was the way I killed time outside
sitting in a summers sun
But now I *** stale cigarettes
and used up ***
to pass the days
as time slowly kills me
inside
The indian with the ***** beard
has my beer and pint on the
counter waiting for me
He sleeps at ease at night
knowing that he’s slowly
killing every drunk that
walks into his seven
eleven
Looking for heaven
looking for salvation
looking for ripe virgins
to sacrifice
for the betterment of a
whiskey night
American terrorists we are
when the dark hits the
tip of our cigarettes and we’re
fine with shutting our minds off to
the plight of everyone’s fight because
we have enough liquor tonight to
ward off the demons that come out to
play when happy hour ends and your
back in the thick of rush hour
The walk from that seven
eleven to
home is lonely
possibly the loneliest
walk you’ll walk
because you are left to think
about what you’re about to
do
See society has tied us up in
it’s restraints, painted us a picture
of wholesomeness that
ends up burning down the white picket
fences and ****** the daughters
while the son’s fail out of school
and end up in a trade
shuffling feet on desert land
dying at the hands of
the real monster
the monster with a real face
and no trace of giving a **** if
the enemy is man or woman
sinner or saint
just another enemy at the gate
trying to take
what ain’t
his
At the door now
you can feel your arm pulse
your ears twitch
your soul scream
you’re about to pour the first drink
fire the first shot
pretend that tonight
one of them won’t be blanks
I’ve retained this habit of keeping the caps of
my bottles next to my drinking area
or inside my pockets
I’m not sure when I began this
habit but it’s ruined a few washers
a few dryers
and at least one ****
At the end of the night there’s a little
graveyard of caps
a drunks Arlington
where you can morn the passing
of one bottle
after another
senseless, this war
you laugh as you keep pulling the
necks of these brown *******
drinking their life’s spirit away
with little remorse for them
or yourself
And that, in the end, will be your
undoing
My magnum opus