They say farmer’s son will learn to take care of seedlings;
smith’s son will learn how to forge and beat the iron;
baker’s son will learn how best to bake
to conquer best the market…

They say some birdies grow up knitting nests;
***’s foals grow up carrying loads;
cubs grow up learning how to roar most

to scare most the jungle…
The blood brothers2 were brought up
like sibling cubs of the lion
as if Mesopotamia was forest.


On birth day3 they learnt to blow lives out of bodies as candles;
a witness will tell how a citizen was received
by Mukhabarat4 waiters
one of such days,
and describe conviviality at Saddam’s
where the evil has born the arch evil5,
and where they learnt the art of making people yell!

At bees biting babies6 Uday was taught to find rejoice;
at parents wearing Adam’s garment7
in front of children
his father’s great power was worth of praise! 8
and he burnt to rule like father or more!



Would the Maker of the Heaven and Earth hold the fit
at the fate of Nahle Sabet9, the cake thrown to swine?
Would Mucius’s10 soul hold the fit
at the fate of Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya11
whose medals and stars were made spots
fit to throw to bin after the half of his life
hurled down from the sky?
Would the pearl Ilham Ali al-Azani12 be thrown like dirt to bin,
father’s fear of Allah tried,
and shot like a sneaking thief,
and the abu sarhan 13 stay without a prize,
and cause more devastations in the garden of Allah?

1. The lion and his cubs: Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and his two sons Uday Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. - 2. The blood brothers: The criminal brothers. Though crimes committed by Uday, the first born of Saddam Hussein, have been the most reported by media, his young brother was not less cruel. In April 26, 1998 he ordered Colonel Hassan al-Amri to ****** on a grand scale at Abu Ghraib, Iraq’s largest prison, and more than 1,500 prisoners were all massacred the next day. – 3. On birthday: Reports say that Saddam’s sons received pistols as presents on their birthday! – 4. Mukhabarat: Saddam’s secret police. – 5. Where the evil has born the arch evil: such is the description of Saddam’s house. He taught criminality to his sons, and his first born became crueller than father. Uday told Latif Yahia, his body double, whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured. – 6. Bees biting babies: This is one of the tortures applied: naked children in a room with a bee hive, being stung hundreds of times, and their parents were forced to watch behind glasses! -7. Parents wearing Adam’s garment: men forced to **** their wives in front of their horrified young children! - 8. His father’s great power was worth of praise: First you note the irony. Uday told Latif Yahia, “Just wait until I become president. I’ll be crueller than my father ever was…” - 9. Nahle Sabet: A pretty architectural student. The girl resisted and rejected Uday publically; he threw her naked to his pack of wild dogs which ripped her to pieces while he watched, drinking champagne and laughing! Here is the testimony by Latif Yahia: «It was the look he was sporting on a crisp, dry winter day in 1987 when he drove around the campus of the University of Baghdad looking for action (for women to ****). He caught sight of Nahle Sabet, a pretty architecture student from a respected middle-class Christian family he’d noticed when he occasionally attended classes. He cruised past her slowly now, honking, trying to get her attention. She refused to even look in his direction. Two days later Sabet was a few blocks from her family’s home in a Baghdad suburb when a Mercedes sedan screeched to a halt on the sidewalk in front of her. Two men in dark suits got out and identified themselves as secret police. They told her she was wanted at headquarters for questioning and led her into the car. Headquarters turned out to be a farm Uday owned several miles from Baghdad. The frightened girl was hustled into a drawing room, where Uday sat at an antique desk. “You’re very lucky,” he said. “I’ve chosen you as my new girlfriend.” “You’re insane,” Sabet stammered. “I want to go home!” “Strip her,” Uday ordered his guards. The burly men pounced on her and ripped at her clothes until she was cowering naked on the floor. Uday towered over her, unrolling his favourite wire cable. “First I will beat you. Then, if you’re good, I’ll allow you to please myself and my men.” It took Uday and his men almost three months to break Sabet’s spirit. Then Uday was tired of her. Her face was ruined; her body was a mass of bruises. He had the guards take her out to the kennels where he kept his attack dogs. He’d told the keepers several days before to stop feeding them. Nahle Sabet was then smeared with honey and tossed into the kennels, where all evidence of the crime disappeared.» – 10. Mucius, (Gaius Mucius Scaevola): God of bravery and heroism in Ancient Roma. – 11. Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya: An Iraqi army officer decorated for bravery in the Iran-Iraq War but that didn’t help him or his new wife. Uday saw the couple walking together, took the girl to a hotel suite. She pleaded with him not to defile her - she had only been married yesterday. Uday beat her until she was ****** then ***** her. Then they heard a long, piercing scream, then silence. The girl had jumped from the seventh floor. Her husband cursed Uday, and he was soon sentenced to death for ‘insulting the president.’ – 12. Ilham Ali al-Azani: Uday always slept with the winner of the Miss Iraq contest. But when attractive student Ilham Ali Al-azami won she turned him down. Uday abducted Miss Iraq to his palace. He ***** her over and over again and then as ‘punishment for her defiance’ allowed all his bodyguards to **** her for an entire week. Then Uday circulated a rumour that the girl was a **** and let her go. The girl’s father, a devote Muslim, was so ashamed that he killed his own daughter. When the aging father appeared at Uday’s palace Uday had the old man shot.- 13. Abu sarhan: Uday seemed proud of his reputation and called himself abu sarhan, Arabic for "wolf".

Excerpt of Gallows Bird in Heaven, http://www.amazon.fr/Gallows-Bird-in-Heaven-ebook/dp/B005JKMW66

Source of the note: www.meritummedia.com, visited 2013/05/19

Glimpsed of innocence
Casually met
Words from strangers
A lot in common
Wine and smiles
Unsolicited lies
Cool distaste
Remnants of disrespect
Cracks in the ice
The inevitable rift
Fragmented faces
The corrosion of moments.

well then shepherd in the mess why does that sharpened cowl of wheat surround those sweet yams in the satchel, some scene of loosening transgressions, no pear ripening itself one dull, and one unfulfilling afternoon, rolls down over its branch of sister and brother father and mother Bartletts from the stem, only to make its way into the bottom of that stretched out tawny hide. Where by the wayside every other nobody can see straight inside when a hand moves in, sweeps its fist and then goes deeply down into that can of rotten novelties we all hate, but you feel keeps us in suspense. I wonder will it ever end? Bells busting from the insides of their guts, another candy shock, up and bounces, popcorn kernels, roasted almond slivers, and some preceding green vegetable posted on the 8th St. Diner marquee display on 9th, another advertisement fighting at the sore, devoured hunger for that silhouette following closely behind the moistened wells where my brush dabs lightly into the cup before the gouache and paint mixture begin to dry, that is where I wait and wonder why? Why? Pained with hunger but besmirched with fright, skin sweaty, knotted like muslin yards growing weak against the coil. So humbling were the groans that nearly a decade crossed swiftly across his face, only five or ten minutes had passed before another twenty years flowed into the vast matrix of the rivers of blue sweat marked by estuaries, creeks, and streams across the brow, down the cheeks, and ultimately across the neck, lazing down into the chest, before settling its heavy panic soaking in the guts. Where a heavy glass brick has been vitrifying in the sun, never have two people seen the steamy and piping-hot quarry go from its conviviality and festivity of life, into this shriveled up tree having found its way into the prairie where giant winds bend its branches and enormous thunderstorms nearly strangle it with its own roots. Frisked by sin and pangs of nostalgia in which a thousand thoughts intersplice the whorls imprinted upon our brains.

On a blue and alabaster evenings , snowfall glows beneath the Winter Sun , joyous , spirited afternoons and conviviality among old friends and family .. Red ribbons and tinsel , the warmth of burning Oak and Hickory , tall evergreen shadows , garland , ornaments with magnificent brilliance enhance the festive celebration on this Day of Miracles* ...

Holding a golden orb, shining in magical love
Glistening until eternity, shining in magical love

A songbird sang for the pair, high in the sky above
Tunes of longevity, of an endearing love

Heart treads entwined, under the moon's glove
Dreams spun in fidelity, a truly splendid love

Traveling the beautiful path, of a seasonal dove
Two souls meshed with conviviality, sparkling their love

Their lifelong bond so exquisite, such wondrous love
A complete circle of unity, lasting with cherishing love

Muddled yet accountable.
Sober yet lively.
Impassive yet doting.
Mixed bag of traits
define him.
Bowlful of big hearted fondness
he carries to embrace all.
Conviviality and amiability
are his favourite words.
Pile of rendezvous,
easy reach outlook,
entangles him in a maze.
Still an apple of everyone's eye and
quite a loved soul.
Being you and always there,
with joy I proclaim,
cuddling happiness and ease.
Best of our camaraderie,
brimming with our fond memoirs
is yet to be savoured.
Attachment and affection remains,
Love, regard grows each day, to remain forever.
Blessed to have you brother, friend!!

When your eye first caught,
a passing glimpse of mine,
all the world was not
in response to you, divine

If my love, by you were to be received
hand in hand, pulled in tactile knots
a love story, to write and to read
all other essences forgot

Join me, as one essence
conviviality of our arms
to watch a moving picture, mesmerized by luminescence
unequivocally present, a moon and its stars

Walk down our favorite street with me,
as I jump on the red fall leaves
my radiant smile back at you, sweet
a kiss forever carefree.

Our reflections on a brass doorknob .
A skeleton key would slowly turn each tumbler ..
Dusty pinewood flooring , antique trinkets ..
Propane space heaters and fresh coffee balm private , erstwhile collective memories . A matriarchs kitchen , well water aroma and cross stitched towels , her flour tinged cotton apron , cast iron skillets and brass tea kettle with porcelain service ushers spirited times of conviviality over a simple oak dining room table ..
Hand made breakfast nook curtains , the majesty of tall Water Oaks
with foraging bantam hens and roosters ..
Dirt roads would tell of visitors long before they ever arrived ,
fishing for shell crackers at the old bridge with cane poles and and dough ***** , leftovers from cat head biscuits at breakfast ...
Pecans and crabapples fed young anglers on shady Summer afternoons . Feeding tall grass to black angus and hereford cattle through barbed wire fence , collecting afternoon eggs and walking the furrows at Dusk ,
days I'll never forget ..

Then on the turn,
When the the eleventh was born,
I picked up the horn,
And put the charm on;

Tense, anxious, unsure,
I listened, intently,
To what the airwaves bore,
Pleasantly surprised, heavenly;

This one, velvety
Most amazing tone,
Dripping from a creamy cone,
Bothering, subtly, on ****; grins

What to admire,
The complicated complexity,
Or the cheeky conviviality?
Hmm...cold fire.

Pair up and be saved.
Pair up and look away.
Avert your eyes to the most depraved in our times:
The Herods, Caligulas, the Dorian Grays.
Focus on your own lives;
raise a family.
Fight those wanton propensities.
Avoid flagrant conviviality.
Do not cross that line of becoming too free.
Like those so many victims of their own enormities,
each one a slave to their every desire and whim.
Pair up and be shipped off -
delivered from sin.

A veil of light and ashen grey
invites me to peer in to stranger day
fluttering and beckoning
behind it what is happening?
a smorgasboard of molten colour
winks at me, summons me near
I become swept up, in hurricane
that rolls and waves across the plane
of one reality in to another

'Tis here I feel my spirit brew
imbued with bright, celestial hue
deep in hinterlands of enchanting joy
where I ravish these pleasures coy
too overwhelmed to fight, resist
the very light with which I'm kissed
from famished eyes I am engorged
my tender spirit enlarged
on trajectory of bliss

On horizon, magic gestates
Leaves my spirit insatiate
Adorned by sparks phantasms brood
Lifting like hot air balloon my mood
Between chasm of magic and reality
Goes visions with conviviality
Enchanting the mind with true force
Summoned from natures magic purse
Which sprinkles havoc on normality

Forms of Beauty riddle my eye
With their heavenly symmetry
Godesseses of divinest shine
Beam soul-deep, from theirs to mine
Behind the veil of usual routine
Lies awesome truth with golden sheen
Nourishing the spirits belly
To magical shores the spirit ferried
Enamoured of most lucid of dreams

Hypocritical catastrophe,
Irreverent duplicity,
Luminarial ludiocrity,
Nonsensical impetuosity.

Flippy floppy, slippy sloppy,
Blamey gamey, shame, shame, shame.

Constitutional incongruity,
Jesuitical dictatoriality,
Oxymoronic partiality,
Nepotistic surreality.

Materialistic abnormality,
Monetaristic conviviality ,
Ritualistic mediocrity,
Histrionic philanthropy.

Gotten rotten, misbegotten
Seldom truthful, lie, lie, lie.

Misdirection genuflection,
Malefaction justification,
Incarceration implication,
Resignation profliferation.

Prevarication reiteration,
Damnation indication,
Malefaction direction
Undetected discretion.

Flippy floppy, slippy sloppy,
Blamey gamey, shame, shame, shame.
Gotten rotten, misbegotten
Seldom truthful, lie, lie, lie.

In contrast with the cold morning air,
The house was cozy and warm
As we all arrived to participate
Like worker bees starting to swarm.
The smell of pork and refried beans
Permeated the room.
The champagne bottles were chilling on ice--
How much did we consume?
Sally brought some egg McMuffins.
I thought, "Something's amiss:
Egg McMuffins and NO pan dulce!°°
What kind of party is this?"

But I wouldn't miss it--nope--for nada:
The annual Alonzo family tamalada.

The giant bucket of masa°°° awaited
Marisa's kneading hands.
While she kneaded the dough, the rest of us
Listened for Sally's commands.
After a brief champagne toast,
Our assembly line started.
Everyone had a job to do;
It wasn't for the faint-hearted.
Spreading the masa on the husks
Was a messy task.
I wondered, "How many will we make?"
But I was afraid to ask.

It wasn't very long before
Everyone in the casa
Was practically covered from head to foot
With fluffy tamale masa.
We spread and stuffed and folded and wrapped
While Sally entertained us.
The conversation, laughter, fun,
And champagne all sustained us.
The wonderful smells of lunch also
Encouraged us to work hard
Lest we be known as shirkers and our
Reputations be marred.

But I wouldn't miss it--nope--for nada:
The annual Alonzo family tamalada

After a few hundred tamales,
The masa was getting low.
I said, "Yay! We're almost done!"
But Alice said, "Oh, no.
That was just the pork; now we're
Making chile and cheese."
Blurry-eyed I held up my spoon
And said, "More hojas,°°°° please."
On and on we continued to work
Like hive bees making honey.
But it was worth it, for these tamales
Are more valuable than money.

Alice, Yvonne, Kathy, Yolie,
Aida, and Sally know why--
As do Marisa, Rebecca, Karen,
Marisol, Nancy, and I--
We always look forward to getting together
For laughter, fun, and cheer
And this spirited, heart-warming gathering
Whenever December is here.
Homemade tamales can't be beat
When made in our special fashion
With love, care, conviviality,
Warmth, goodwill and passion.

I wouldn't miss it--nope--for nada:
The annual Alonzo family tamalada.

__
°tamale-making party
°°Mexican sweet bread
°°°dough
°°°°(corn husk) leaves

- by Bob B

What now, the loss of limbs in a distant conflagration?
The seeping brains amongst poppy fields?
The myriad nature of violent death, outside of journalistic imagination
A grind of experience on which the lost youth builds.
What now? Within the shredding blasts euphoria
The élan of a soldier, in memoria

Downing drinks in the Stag and Hare
After a tour, ordinary actions reek of tedium
There is, in the conviviality, no rush of adrenalin there
Fermenting trouble establishes a happy medium.
Quarrelling with a man who wears a business suit
Is displaced adventure, smashing his face in is a hoot.

What now? A mate, a favoured friend, dies in the dirt
When whistling a tune, recalling the holiday in Spain, the family,
A shot coursing through his unbuttoned shirt
Deflating his lung, another shattering his knee
When he died, his platoon died too,
Metaphorically; the snipers aim was true.

Bottled up in Basra, aimlessly wandering in Helmand
A shrill event on News at Ten between politics and football,
Another death, another iconic face, the catasphropic end
Of a youthful  life.  What now? The swift end to a morning stroll
Amongst watching villagers in dry breathless mountains
Empty streams and florescent fountains.

In the terracotta dirt my soul leaked away
My final return was like a funeral celebration,
I said nothing anymore. I had nothing left to say.
I’d given my youth to a sniping cynical nation.
What now? It was over for me in a grasping world-
A gooey puddle spread beneath me as my soul evacuated.

Paint Me a Picture

Paint me a picture
With fiery red clashing with sentimental blue
With groovy orange dancing with golden yellow
With hidden messages etched in the pigment

Paint me a picture
Where lamentation of the ****** is naught
Where trumpets announce the coming of conviviality
Where the background is illuminated with fierce fireworks

Paint me a picture

Real work, whether of mind or body. Real work isn't a job or an occupation. It is any effort that occurs when what you know and what you do converge with who you really are.

Mammalian warmth: the touch of human bodies in all it's wonder and pleasure that reminds me of Nietzsche's saying, "First, be a healthy animal."

A cat's purr. It's existence requires no justification; it is complete in itself.

Blueberries, the plants and the fruit. A feast for every sense.

Books, movies, and works of art that are so compelling they take you on a vacation from reality by creating their own more vivid reality.

My white, 1997 Saturn with 245,000 miles on it. A gift from an angel, I call her Moby and together we sail the asphalt seas. She's a real lady.

Birds. They fill the world with color and music and desire no profit in return.

A lovely woman with bare legs in a sun dress. As Wallace Stevens said, "Beauty is momentary in the mind, the fitful tracing of a portal, but in the flesh it is immortal."

The electric charge of lips touching lips, of flesh brushing flesh.

Anything, on a woman, that is made of silk. Silk is exquisite, elegant and ******.

Weeds that flower, because their beauty is unexpected.

Evan Williams bourbon. Exquisite distilled ****** that burns and satisfies.

Cool evenings after hot days.

Conversation that sparkles with intelligence, wit and conviviality.

Warren Zevon, Thelonious Monk and Mozart, not necessarily in that order.

True friends. When the chips are down, they are a treasure more valuable than even family.

The magical, healing sound of flowing water.

Trees, especially the deciduous. Their greenness speaks to and cools my spirit.

Writing and reading poetry, my craft and my solace.

Love. It is elusive and difficult and perhaps impossible, but the belief that it may be out there sustains even the jaded, aging life.

The fecundity of the unexpected.

Fireflies. Almost too much beauty for one world.

Sunrises, because they bring the undeserved possibility of another shot at redemption.

Garlic, the spice of the gods.

And on and on...
- mce

Let the Earth receive the music -
of the lonesome eve calling , sung before cranberry ,
fuchsia , Monet renditions of sundown ,
before crystal garland evergreens , Hickory
tinsel , alabaster hillsides from the mortarboard
of 'Divine Creation' , odiferous rosin cementing
the grandeur of distant dark Sugar and White Pine
The conviviality of countless starlight from dew
wetted plain o'er boundless ****** night* ...

Raise thy slumbering, majestic heads
And see the light from divine ether bled
Which casts a glow upon reality
Truths go bold with conviviality
To be by discerning eye read

The light is bright, puts up a fight
It's on the side of our delight
The ride is wild so sit down tight
And enjoy the whirring sight

Our spirits shall soar like floating kites
For having been blessed by sacred rites
The charge of light is irrepressible
And enchants the spirit irascible
That the evil blights

O, from what Heaven hast thou departed,
Imbued with the aura of eternity,
A dalliance of dreams thou has started,
With conviviality and fraternity,
We waltz and dance across the stars;
I communicate their joys in verse,
Begetting tender and sonorous bars,
That sing of the flowering Universe.
Now thou hast taken my hand in thine,
I know not the sadness of earlier times,
We fathom Love and soar divine,
Erasing bruises of Love's earlier lacerations, crimes.
    Towards brighter day we, ebullient, go
    Dreaming, rocking to and fro.

Buddha wakes up bursting in to song
Effulgent with the love of life
A mind's expanse to suppress the throng
Of suffering to which all souls are wife
Seeing war a strategy of illusion built
Deceiving the divine dalliance of time
It functions in minds, yet beyond
Tyrants act and grown men mime
Dreaming, rocking to and fro
Dancing, clapping as they go
Children under the bodhi tree
Taste wisdom as it rains and snows
Their art is the joyful revolution
With yet withstand a cynic's trial
The intellect? a phony judge
The heart? compassionate of all
Propaganda of hate's reality
Yet heaped upon the ones who see
The way with theatricality
Go oppressors with conviviality
With the millenium's golden quill
I'll break devil's confraternity
With wanton wit and whimsical will
Spell peace in stars across eternity
Loves destiny to be immortalised sublime
In words that vanquish hell and transcend time.

Swift was dusk, reminding people how time flies by quickly before one realized.
Their world was separated,
two boundaries that could never met,
as was fated by heaven itself.

Slip from the crack of the boundary,
The two illusionary figures collide.
Stretching across the land,
White flakes cover every nook and cranny,
Their figures were like two magnets attracted toward one another.

She knew of his name that was covered in blood.
He had walked a path filled with corpses,
the murderer who slaughtered millions with his sword.
Looking at him from a distance, she laughed.
Nothing was needed to be said,
for words were meaningless to the both of them than the look they gave to each other.

The country is broken, though hills and rivers remain,
In the city in spring, the grass and trees are thick.
Chaos, like oil mixing with water, order is not to be anchored.
Enemy, are many;
Peace is few.
In this world, my enemy is numerous as clouds,
Are you willing to accompany my path?

Her smile was the blooming spring that would be coming.
Somehow, she had always believed in him.
He would never fail her.
If he walked the path filled with obstacles, then she would accompany him!

Alone in the northern lands,
The two of them burrow their feet in the earth,
Hands held gently against one another as they faced each other.
A tranquil solemnity befalls on the place,
as all of nature was to witness the soon unity of the couple,
Far from the turmoil of the world.

First, Prayer to the heaven and earth present to witness their love.
As if signifying their presence,
The earth shook, the clouds cleared.
Their heads held high, and their gaze locked onto each other.

A bow to Heaven and Earth,
This bow is as surreal as a dream.
First thanking Heaven for bestowing conformity upon the two of us,
Allowing me to meet you among billions of people,
Till white-haired yet never parted.

A bow to Heaven and Earth,
Kneeling love and hate into dust,
Before kowtowing the earth, permitting a place of quietude for the both of us.
let us imagine the world hatred as congratulatory,
In the end, neither of us owning the other anything,
This life, this moment,
There are only the twos of us.

And the final bow to Heaven and Earth,
the last to represent that they would stick through thick and thin,
a bow to each other,
Immemorial promises to remind each other that they are one yet not, alone yet together.
Their conviviality was sent as a prayer to Heaven and Earth,
coveting their thoughts for peace,
And may it last forever more, under the eternal heaven.

If not this life,
In the next life,
May we meet again.

In the fullness of time the Truth runs clear
To those who yield to its ebb and flow
The riddle is resolved and the answer appears
Through percipient perception it goes
Beneath distraction and illusion
Lies the fearsome, awesome Reality
Through which the Truth's effusion
Goes with conviviality
We live to strive to know it's flame
For it casts light on our Heart's path
Disabuses the ruse and game
And heals in its aftermath
     O Truth, you showed me in bad health
     And brought back to life my truest self

She is an artist of reason, sharp and sure
Who creates a masterpiece from logic
Her thoughts have me ever craving more
For their sequence ascends like magic
A scientist she is yet an artist
Who creates out of the raw material of reality
Yet the magic strikes, with her it didn't miss
It's alive in her and goes with conviviality
Her entreaties are so spirited
Fierce, witty and wry
Her mind is uninhibited
As wide and deep as sky
To the east, she goes in wayward trance
Filled with the rhythm of the worlds romance

By acquisition of perfidiousness,
  superabundant equanimity serves as cynosure
for perspicacious circumlocution
  Extricated from acumen by coruscant conviviality
     prescient luminescence elicits magnanimous ebullience
   Profundity wrought the saxicolous
    Winebibber, penultimate in cupidity
    Unencumbered by concupiscence
   in which anomalistic accoutrements might unto be bequeathed
Alas, only by auspices, might idiosyncrasies be brought to be remunerative
As such, in trust, bellwether, to excogitate and make usufruct
is as to find parsimonious, what opulence incorrigibly writhes therein
By hedonistic primal instinct, chase, to what is callipygian

A mere one per cent of
my memory is concealed
in the bottle.
Is there a Genie and what
would be my wish, or is it the
moment of conviviality as
promised on the label.

What a destiny and all
because of Dr Bob Killjoy,
who thought he was divinely
inspired by a goldfish that
spent the entire prohibition
era offering blow jobs in
the drink tank!