"scotch" poems
“What’s your favourite drink?
Really old scotch or champagne.”
“Nah!
Her wet lips.”
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC
It’s not funny, you know
It’s not a joke
You laugh at me
Until you choke
I wish you did,
I’d gladly watch
You swallow your words
Like you swallow your Scotch
It’s not something
That you can use
For people to like you
It’s verbal abuse
You’re mocking me
My everything
How would you like it if
I did the same thing?
But I wouldn’t dare
Because I know how it feels
I’ll patiently wait
Life is a rolling wheel
Maybe one day soon
You’ll be treated the same
I’ll be long gone by then
You’re the only one to blame.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 11:57 PM UTC
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the
goat-footed
baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
16k
I look at my purple and yellow flesh.
Smile at the memory of where you have been.
The harsh and heavy marks of our love.
I bite my bottom lip and press my thighs tight.
Stifle moans from the ache it brings.
Explosions raddle my brain and i wish to be with you again.
I trace the indention of rope along my wrists.
The thin line between pain and pleasure.
How we crossed it; played hop-scotch with it.
I giggle to the excitement of my battered soul.
The snap and crack of a flogger on my back.
Spiders crawl down my spine with the words,
"You are mine."
Aug 18, 2017
Aug 18, 2017 at 5:09 PM UTC
Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. Intricate nubs,
my toes. No longer bound.
And what's more, see toenails and
all ten stages, root by root.
All spirited and wild, this little
piggy went to market and this little piggy
stayed. Long brown legs and long brown toes.
Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you.
There is no one else but us
in this house on the land spit.
The sea wears a bell in its navel.
And I'm your barefoot ***** for a
whole week. Do you care for salami?
No. You'd rather not have a scotch?
No. You don't really drink. You do
drink me. The gulls **** fish,
crying out like three-year-olds.
The surf's a narcotic, calling out,
I am, I am, I am
all night long. Barefoot,
I drum up and down your back.
In the morning I run from door to door
of the cabin playing chase me.
Now you grab me by the ankles.
Now you work your way up the legs
and come to pierce me at my hunger mark
13.4k
You are my dear, decadent desert,
My summer-thyme delight; Starlight.
Tonight’s your night, for you I write.
Radiant glow, fuzzed herbal hue.
My dear butterscotch icecream.
Sore arms churn thick, slick froth - Sauterne butter.
Gentle spread melts, dowsed in sweet, sugared innocence,
rich scents, then sits.
6 years pass quickly, youthhood gone;
My black swan, a third complete.
You, sauterne butter, mix with scotch -
Fermented, demented, invented to inebriate.
Golden brew dissociates reality -
Spinny, fuzzy, dizzy, funny… gone.
Go on again, dear fawn, 6 years pass,
Pant for the water, two-thirds complete.
12 years as toll to adolescence;
Icy, creamy, dreamy, element prepared.
Scoops of soft serve mix with years past - Angsty era.
Seductive spirits, beautiful brew.
At last, my summer-thyme delight dances with rhyme.
The lime-light shines; ten and eight.
Todays the date, stuff immaturity away.
Make room for the adulthoods’ good,
Scooped generously into a bowl
Shuttled and entrapped by me,
Melting, streaming, gleaming and freezing.
You awesome angel!
My pleasure supreme -
My dear butterscotch icecream.
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 6:43 PM UTC
Whisky, I neglected you
For mushrooms and amphetamines.
For ket and **** and LSD,
And Mandy too, to name a few.
Needn’t I have looked so far
To be the greatest of cliches.
The drugs and raves led me astray.
For writers, scotch is more on par.
Half your bottle drank away,
Half full in my state of mind.
Every sip; sublime and kind,
Every **** a harshened spray.
Now I’m stuck, a drunken haze
Has washed and swept the ways of rhyme.
In its tide is also time,
As by the sun, the night decays.
Whisky, polished, final sip.
Like the bottle, I am dry.
So, I tried, to write not high.
This poem ***** I’m off to trip.
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
The man at the bar
He is a young ****
He's got years on his slate
Double my own
A bottle of scotch
He swishes away
The British way
Born in London
Now a Southerner
Touring the country
With his Wife,
Elene
Not missing a thing
Quite the engineer
Laughing away
With each glass
The bartender brings
Flapping his yap
At the pretty young miss
Residing at the bar
Enjoying her dinner
No longer feeling a part
From the crowd
Oct 21, 2011
Oct 21, 2011 at 8:58 PM UTC
“I remember the bed just floating there” is how Phil Kaye started his ‘repetition’ poem.
I remember pausing the youtube video after the poem ended.
I remember burying my feelings under 3 blankets and 4 hours of binge watching spoken word poetry.
I do not remember the dreams I could have had.
I remember the set of nightmares that visited religiously like the downstairs neighbor tired of how loud my heart pounds at late evenings.
I remember, very clearly, how they went.
I do not remember if I have written them down.
Dream one: he peels my freckles off my skin; he says he needs them because his coffee is too light. I scream while he calmly adds pints of the cheeks to his cup. He says I can never be as quiet as the girl who managed to sneak into his ribcage and build herself a bedroom.
Dream two: We are standing in the great library of Alexandria. He pulls the sea from underneath my feet and stuffs it into his back pocket. He says he needs it because he is tired of drowning himself in uncertainty. I start to cry and he says: Aries is the god of war, and women born under this sign confuse war for love.
I remember the mole on his left ear growing bigger in my nightmares without me ever watering it.
I remember he smelled of tangerine trees and broken records.
I do not remember if his face looked like the man I almost fell in love with last winter, or my father.
I remember the first time I saw my father after he came back from Ukraine.
I remember his brown leather shoes that oozed of old spice cologne and neat scotch.
I remember his hardly worn pair of glasses and the pieces of me they never cared to read.
I remember the wrinkles that seemed newer than his glasses slowly colonizing his hands... the hands that never held me as tight as the dress I wore to my school prom hoping it would catch my ex’s attention.
I remember that dress.
I remember it had a floral print reminiscent of the season that I was named after hoping maybe it would remind him I’m part him.
I remember realizing he will never remember.
And now, I sit on a carpet of autumnal leafs as crisp as my tied tongue and as dead as my fears, trying to turn my love for him into more than just a memory.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC
she was hot, she was so hot
I didn't want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn't get home on time
she'd be gone, and I couldn't bear that-
I'd go mad. . .
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the **** thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I'd be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops. . .
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again. . .
I had to be home by 8,8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station. . .
it wouldn't start, it couldn't start. . .
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station. . .
I threw the keys down. . .signed out. . .
your ********* truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western. . .
. . .I ran down the hall,put the key into the door,
opened it. . .her drinking glass was there, and a note:
sun of a *****
I waited until 5 after ate
you don't love me
you sun of a *****
somebody will love me
I been wateing all day
Miriam
I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I'd make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
6.3k
“Play it cool,” they said to me one afternoon.
Five years later, people drop me in their drinks. Scotch on the rocks.
The glass speaks to them from behind drunken eyes.
“I am the Twist",
the twist that accompanies the elixir you crave so fervently.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 8:16 AM UTC
A Workplace Rendezvous
My eyes
Always found hers.
Mischief,
The dangling host.
She was one
Of my workplace peers.
If it went any further
I could be toast.
Those cinnamon eyes
Of hers.
Butterscotch candy
Peers back at me,
I feel so dandy
Shoot me some brandy.
I see the loneliness
In hers.
Her cleavage
Cuts to the chase.
Happenstance now in place.
Our eyes did dance a duet.
Her words are the coquette.
Mine is a cadet.
We grabbed a ruse.
A pail and mop with a muse.
When we reached
The men's restroom
The coast was clear.
The sun shining above,
Holding a frown.
Say hello to the clown.
We fast break the court,
I dribble up and down.
She passes back and forth,
I shoot for the town.
We score at the bell,
That breaks the spell.
Our lunch break
Rendezvous
Was a first.
And last.
We filled our thirst
With
better scotch
we toast.
Logan Robertson
10/6/2018
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 2:16 AM UTC
*“As for Charles – he likes girls. If he’s drunk, I’ll do. But – just when I’ve managed to harden my heart, he’ll turn around and be so sweet. “
“You like him a lot, don’t you?”*
The night crumbles to dust as I trace
every single crease, every nook, every edge of you.
I drink you in, you drink cheap wine:
you only kiss me with alcohol in your blood,
you cannot stomach me without
the drugs.
A pile of cigarette ash on the floor,
broken glass. Shattered ice cubes and
cigarette butts.
It’s a scene of decay; you and I
could only survive if you whispered
sweet nothings and I let you gut
me. You lead me on and I always
slip, and touch you and believe
this time will be the time you stay,
this time will be the time you remember last night
morning come,
this time will be the time
I
am
the
one.
It rains the first time and there’s a bottle
of scotch; we play cards; you’re drunk:
I strip you off; tonight you smile; tonight
you will not mind if I touch
your jaw
your lips
your waist
and below
and your heart
no – never your heart.
Then it’s a matter of time.
You always come when you need me and I
can never refuse to be the one
who lets your tongue
explore my mouth
if only drunk
if only for a while
if only for the night.
I’m there. I will do. For now.
I kiss
your lips
your throat
your neck
your collarbones
and down – way down – below
and your heart
no – never your hear.
You twist me round your little finger and I
would die and die and **** and die
a thousand times
to have you look at me and say
I’ll stay tonight.
My Charles.
No – never mine.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
My body steeps in this hot sarcophagus,
Coated in fake butter topping.
I watch trollops quaffing hoppy-scotch,
Flipping wristwatches for moves to jump rope two-and-two.
Like when I was 10, and I saw this ***** white trash can of a man,
Fly out of a grocery store with a 40oz like he was Peter Pan.
But I knew deep down, in my swashbuckling soul of souls,
That Peter Pan got Wendy by being a gentleman.
So this fever, that has my mobile phone not shaking in my pocket,
I keep staring at every five seconds for you to call.
Is just another moment in my life to cherish, because if we should be married, And I want to talk. I'll just need to walk down the hall.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a ***** poem
somebody told me not to read ***** poems
here
it's too late.
my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.
and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since beome tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.
5.4k
drunk on the dark streets of some city,
it's night, you're lost, where's your
room?
you enter a bar to find yourself,
order scotch and water.
****** bar's sloppy wet, it soaks
part of one of your shirt
sleeves.
It's a clip joint-the scotch is weak.
you order a bottle of beer.
Madame Death walks up to you
wearing a dress.
she sits down, you buy her a
beer, she stinks of swamps, presses
a leg against you.
the bar tender sneers.
you've got him worried, he doesn't
know if you're a cop, a killer, a
madman or an
Idiot.
you ask for a *****
you pour the ***** into the top of
the beer bottle.
It's one a.m. In a dead cow world.
you ask her how much for head,
drink everything down, it tastes
like machine oil.
you leave Madame Death there,
you leave the sneering bartender
there.
you have remembered where
your room is.
the room with the full bottle of
wine on the dresser.
the room with the dance of the
roaches.
Perfection in the Star ****
where love died
laughing.
5.3k
Forlorn beauty-child
Living in my night
Crying in your dream.
Sounds of sorrow
Linger in the morning mist
Of subdued consciousness.
Troubled water falls
From awakened red eyes
That searched inside loneliness
Only to find more.
Now...
Behind my faceted face
Your countenance lingers...
I glance quickly within,
You disappear!
Your gaze lit my shadowed mind.
Your presence was there waiting
For me…
A Sonata…
A Fantasy
A Major key bright-shining
Singing sunbeams to lift me.
After the music...
Shards of shattered dreams
Scattered like felled icicles
lying in the sun, melting into mulch
They dawned bright green
Pipers on Scottish dew.
The mourning moon is
Catchlight in your eyes
Bright Bird...
Captivating sailors
Reaching down evoking vulnerable
Aspects held so long secret...
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 2:38 AM UTC
We cover illness with flowers
and flowers die
The inside of my mouth tastes like it is decaying
I hope I lose all of my teeth first
Maybe its just the scotch and *****
But there is a burning in my throat
Maybe it is Satan just making his way out
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
New Year's Eve party.
With the popular kids.
That you don't know well.
But your boyfriend's going,
and you need to go too.
(for a New Year's kiss,
of course.)
Your favorite pair of jeans
because they are easy to dance in.
Your best floral tank top
because it's brand new
(and it's cold out, so you can
have an excuse to wear his jacket.)
Coral blush
because it looks good with
your skintone.
Purple eyeliner
because it makes your eyes pop.
And french manicure,
(your very first one!)
Done by your older sister,
aided with scotch tape
for the tips.
(It makes your hands look pretty,
and official,
like your best friends mom.)
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 9:17 PM UTC
It’s early Friday afternoon and,
over plates of greasy spoon dinner,
the musician and the businessman
repeat their weekly ritual.
The businessman has his problems at home
and spills his guts to his musician friend.
“It’s been a real long time coming,
but she’s still been such a bitter *****
They’ve met this way since
their college days and nights
spent studying the bottoms
of whiskey bottles. And, as usual,
the businessman’s hair sits sprawled
on his head like a rag, and his tie
is loosened. The musician doesn’t understand
divorce: “You look like hell.
You know, if you need a place to stay,
Helen and I and the boy
can always make some room for you.”
They light a pair of cigarettes and wait
for a waitress to kick them out.
Into the haze of a Lower East Side crowd
the musician and his band play
his newest pieces, riffs on the happy swagger
of the Duke. His critics—
and he has many—
write that his jazz sings
the inescapable *********** of suffering
through the life of every oblivious body,
which makes the musician’s music
sound more like the blues
than jazz. But it’s jazz all the same
and perhaps it was the intensity
of the growling bass that shot
spirits down the throats in the audience,
reeling drunk in time to the beat
of the musical suffering.
The weekdays die and it is Friday again.
He has a big view of midtown,
the businessman, and though the window the falling
sun horizons over his socked toes,
parked on his desk in triumph over
all those stockholders. It’s a pain
to lose your family,
but the businessman puts on
a good face, and drinks.
This Friday, the musician and the businessman
are not in the mood for talking.
But a scotch thrown down,
and the two are tighter than
thieves.
The businessman complains of life at home
and the musician’s eyes cross.
That night, the musician skips his performance.
His wife cries in their bed,
shuddering with worry and asking him
what makes him so distant? she asks—
it’s a mystery even to himself.
He is sweating whiskey—
which suits him fine—
and he spends his night on the bridge.
One week later and it is Friday, finally.
Today, the businessman will see
his children at his former home
for the last time for a handful of months
at best. The musician has not been home
for three days. He stays at a friend’s apartment,
puts on his ***** blazer
and a record of the Duke’s
before he throws himself down the airshaft.
The businessman jumps on the 5:44
out of town and calls his friend the musician
to cancel their usual Friday meeting,
but his phone keeps ringing,
ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing.
Apr 12, 2010
Apr 12, 2010 at 10:01 PM UTC
a bottle of scotch had bad dreams.
bullets twitch, junk sick
in 3 inch thick
mustard ****
toe nails clipped from yeti
lay strewn about the **** stained corpse
of a motel six dixie cup -
root canal trophy,
next to
a black fez
with scab tassel
upended.
down in it. belching apnea
propaganda
and belladonna
waiting for curious george
to find a shotgun
and a yellow
hat
and a brick banana.
blowflies inhale the rank damp
of a fresh ****
the odd dog whines
like a clown in -
a blender.
[ the ]
house wins
with a marked card; jabbing fat fingers
into acned rosacea
bloated with sleep lack
and mortgage
back stab
chasing twenty ******
with a hollow point
pull from an acid
flask
while hailing a black cab.
tinsel sutures
stitch eyelids as a mercy
shattered bone knit
hand-grenade
cozies
old glory, at half mast
half wasted
fifty stars, no light
dragging on
the grounds of immunity
to do a line
of coke stock
with a basset hounds'
finesse.
your taxes at work
in columbia,
hiding from a lost farm
in Idaho
your american dream
turning tricks in shanghai
for a counterfeit
egga roll
your meme, devoid
like an ice cube
tombstone
your freedom, parking cars
for italian escorts
smoking skin flutes
for ferraris
and white teeth.
your integrity, sold to a hedge fund
for astroglide and a pez dispenser
packed with prozac
pressed by ' Jose the butcher' s abuela
in a narco slum
that ain't seen radio
since cinder blocks
had wings.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM UTC
partying got old in a hurry.
it aged like milk that was bought
a few days before expiration.
and I'm lactose intolerant anyway,
why the **** am I drinking this?
I'm looking for something more mature,
that becomes ripe
with the passage of time,
like 50 year old scotch.
and I'm an alcoholic anyway,
why isn't there a bottle in my hand?
overwhelmed with the thought of you
drinking anything
with anyone else
while I sit here alone
and sip another cup of coffee,
with only the wind to keep me company.
and even he doesn't stay for long.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 2:46 AM UTC
Witchcraft and wine
it comes so naturally,
and now that you’re mine
I’m going to actually
try my best not to lose it.
If there’s a bomb then I will defuse it.
If there’s an offer I’ll just refuse it.
If there’s a card to play I’m going to use it.
Because you’ve got me under
Your blanket of stars and mysteries,
connecting our scars and histories.
In parked cars both sighing mystically
and back to the park where I was to shy to try anything.
Sorcery and scotch
you put me in a trance.
If you took it down a notch,
I just might stand a chance
that I’m not going to lose my head,
even with my cheeks burning red
getting brighter as you quietly said
“I’ll meet you tonight in our bed.”
Depriving me of slumber
With your healing touch and cosmic skin,
I’m within your clutch and freely giving in.
It’s too much and you have yet to begin,
removing my crutch and cleansing me of each sin.
I was warned of street magicians
and cautioned with tales of gateway drugs.
To not take my eyes off no matter the conditions,
because that’s when they tend to pull rugs.
“If you fall for one,
you’ll fall for them all.”
But this time I’m done,
I think it’s last call.
With your witchcraft and wine,
you make it look so divine.
Aug 15, 2025
Aug 15, 2025 at 7:11 PM UTC
We sense it because it comes inexorably,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet,
this the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 17, 2019
Jun 17, 2019 at 2:37 PM UTC
The redneck got arrested last night.
The ******* was barking back at dogs
and belting shots of scotch well-before sundown.
You could say he and the sun were collectively sinking.
Nights like these
breed pregnant silences
between the outbursts.
I sit poised for the next eruption
as a child cloistered under covers for fear of thunderclaps--
Another howl,
(presumably bellowing for beer)
then he's batting his live-in lap-straddler
around the apartment beneath me.
With every strike
the drywall learns a lesson
this ignorant *****
can't get a grip on:
some things never change.
The world will change around them
like tissue growing around a bullet fragment.
The cops come,
the cuffs go on,
and the problem is put on pause for an evening--
but he'll ascend the stairs with the sunrise.
They'll reconcile,
because misery does want for company.
He'll promise he'll be different.
She'll actually believe him.
They'll be back to battering their plaster
with the reverberations of ******* and arguments.
She can't see that a drunkard's apologies
are counterfeit currency.
I took it for common knowledge.
Perhaps it is...
Perhaps, like living in tornado alley,
they cope with ceaseless shit-storms
because they're just too lazy to move.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 12:36 AM UTC