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Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

    I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.

    Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
ogdiddynash Jun 2015
~~~

threw out bottles and bottles
of aged liquor mixes and
some liquor too old
for brain risk taking,
tonic water that could
no longer tonic,
margarita mix that might
mix a stomach story poorly,
spirits that had seen better days,

cranky and worse,
twenty plus such  characters
from bottom shelf pulled
all well gray coated covered,
in twenty plus dusty seasons' complainings...

clanked and clanged the plastique bag
of liquid trash to the curb,
perhaps purposely others to awaken,
perhaps the thought occurred,
that no minute or opportunity must go underutilized,
unlike my glassy expired companions,
in happy contemplation
contemplated,
"whatever will the neighbor's think?"

****, those party animals
didn't invite us!


~

you're never too young to forget
where you left
those critical external ****** appurtenances,
the jangly, yet magically disappearing
into a stony metaled silence when needed,
bunch of keys,
so mission critical to
the sweet savory of
our lives' mission

but!
you think you should write
you're never too
  old
but that would be stale bread,
old news, insufficiently poem-worthy,
coated in stale peanut butter and jelly

no, young
is written tight and right,
for in the days of selfies and tinder,
'tis the season of
easily committing grievous
social personal errors
that it almost criminal,
forgetting those keys
and their locking companion's,
who also serve us
daily, dually

unlocking our hearts
open wide
to all things
kind and wonderful,
love long lasting

yet to intently lock us up,
safe secure from
those that who would predate
their own young,
or noise suppress your own best songs

so don't casual place those keys,
in the bowl by the door,
key kept close upon thy person,
for though they may be
pointy pocket causing misery originals,
keep them forever handy
for they are thy keeper of thy sources,
the third hand that
opens up the treasures of
thyself


~

twelve princes had I,
from the sun king's corona
they were born and derived,
with a "hop" and skip
from Mexico,
they, conquistadores came north quick,
seeking the salutations and praise
of our eastern middle states'
summer breezy kisses

I met then at George's
our island supermarket,
to which they came seeking shelter

our island so small,
that all purveyors,
homes too,
are shtetl nominated by
each owner's name,
even if the first to inhabit,
though long from the island rabbited,
so they are deeded and recorded

one prince, the bravest spoke,

"Let me be the first
and  thru my neck,
you poetic thirst to quench"


and as I tippled the long necked Corona
beer

**into the overheated imagination
of my amplifying belly
their parental sun did whisper,
"**** good thing
there are eleven more!'
Lightbulb Martin Nov 2013
Amazing what
Never cleansed
Dirteous skews-

Appall us
Appealing-

Glurveous revealing-

Tippled *******
Cinched

A lack
Unnerving
Loves
At you.


SD Kealey May 2013
The first time I saw
Betty Grater swoon
and heard Ms Arnault sigh
in expectation
I knew I had found the answer
that all young men seek

Instead of good looks
and the scent of money
I realized that the tippled sound of Thomas,
the piston drive of Cummings,
or shroud and mystery of Rimbaud
could accomplish what fumbling
postures never could

They could make a button come
undone and stay that way
part a leg and have it
remain languid
see an arm brushed
and not pulled back

Ah, but women are not
so easily wooed
You see, poetry is but a beginning
once is never sufficient
and Cyrano found
he was forced to return
and return
to keep those fires burning

Soon you discover it is not enough
to merely sing another’s tune
and you  must learn the art
whose muse is not so
easily tamed

So the new poems to Emily or Mary Lou
are steeped in ignorance, stumbling tongue
and emotion that knows only extreme
a Dickinson hodgepodge of flowers,
spring-rain and metaphor trampled
by testosterone expectation

And as these women grow
you discover the magic is fading
that they have learned these lures
and their virtue will not part quite so easy

Ah, but art is ever inventive
and for those hard to dissemble
there are the more obscure songs
of Baudelaire, Jefferson and Yeats
these will free even the firmest
of corset-strung objections

But to truly reach the promised land
there is need to create one’s own
to wrestle the evening with nature’s muse
and tease a line between the sheets
Then, if you've still a mind
you can glance to see
if her clothes have been shed

But the sad and beautiful truth
is that poetry’s muse will suffer no others
rarely will that graceful form stay the course
she will leave to find yet another
that can keep them
coming
Written a few years ago, but I thought I would put it out.  Trying to expand my comfort zones, and perhaps this will be the impetus to reengage with my periodic muse
andy fardell Dec 2012
A sadness fell about these eyes
This was another day
Another wasted life
One look into the mirror as the old man
Stared right back

A glimmer of a past in life
Now hardness be in black
All clouds now full of thunder
No sunshine on my back

Memories dulled as day falls
Over  
Another night of lost
Leafed clover
Had seen the best in days
From nights not sober

Be friends lost to frosted haze
Blurred Pints of cash in tippled over
My eyes remember as crippled
Shaken hands
Show suns age wine

Body all bent to a bend to the
stick
Mirror look the other way
My world is in a spin
Fall into the earth
The time to reach up high
New life beginning
Reaching for the sky
Joe Fogg Jan 2023
Plip, plip, plop,
Drip, drip, drop
over and over
it never did stop
From the top of the tap
To the top of the bath
It tippled and drippled
And every drop dripped
It landed in ripples
Rising up to the top
Reaching the lip
The over it lopped
A Cascading flood
From a little drip drop
Martyn Grindrod Jan 2021
I have been there
A paradisiacal spring
Abloom of my senses
Affaire du cœur

She wandered inside
tiptoeing her way
Striding even
inside my garden of eden

Just the once for a month or so
weightless inertia
took over our souls
but we were there

To replicate is impossible
Our waters they rippled
We got drunk at the inn of love
We got severely tippled

Martyn Grindrod
Drinks Heron Me
(a stout rendition of Captain Oh Captain)

Mine eyes espy the glory
     per ending of another work day doth
     beckon Baily's Irish Creme
with Absolut certainty that
     Fireball named Brandy
     the Patron Crown
     Royal abets dream
quest proof positive

     to expunge stressful Boss
     distilling cooked Grey Goose gleam
with nary blue clue how  
     ceaseless toiling efforts
     play within lager corporation scheme
assigning exemplary
     skills and talents within
appears ******* up losing team.

No exit out this grueling
     twenty first century
     rat trap where by Scotch
     chief en gin air
except to drawn displeasure
     and wallow in sorrows
     downing *****, or
     house brand beer

despite drunken state
     erodes axons and synapses
     snap like chattering
     false teeth of broken gear
quickly cause tenuous
     grasp on queasy reality,
     sanity, and tenacity
     rent asunder and tear

Now that work day done
     at long last, not a moment
     to tally date with
     Jack Daniels to delay
this linkedin conga line wants
     to wash away sounds
     of barked orders *** bling – may
king me insides

     writh with anger
as if type cast in diabolical
     formidable, horrible play
whereby each active
     scene increases assistance
     for Johnny Walker to glide and sashay.
Argh, how those last remaining
     minutes to escape hubbub

     ticks away at pace of a snail
to these myopic eyes,
     which suspect manager
     surreptitiously turns
     back clock hands male
lush hiss lee deliberately
     toys with sanity, thus seek counsel
     from Jimmy Beam without fail

when super tramping head honcho
will cease cheap trick
     renouncing cruel act ale
ling me without sh malt s, Hops,
     skips and jumps inebriation
     welcomes me rendering taps
receding thoughts being bound, cramped,
     and emulsified in

     dark cubicle Schnapps
as if invisible taut cord
     tears into virtual tatters
     and life of Wry lee loosed *****
from shredded material trailing
     a tail that rivals tales of Aesop's.
That ambler liquid
     of gods soothes palate and tongue

     helps tubby dee
     sensitized comfortably numb
feeling settles within
     thine body electric
     dulling the senses with
     heavy eye lids plum
met to close shut tight
     riding wave of ecstasy,

     reflecting about dad and late mum,
though come morrow, a hang over
     with ascension sensation
     akin to Günter Grass
     loud banging his tin drum.
Upon rising sober with total amnesia
     sans pandering  buffoon
realizing fallacious gimcrackery,
    
while ensconced fermented cocoon
***** hound tippled top dog
     quickly reminded yours truly
     how I goon
off the rails, perhaps, cuz of living
     within a trackless caboose
     sized wife named June.
********
Poet script:

An out of character bon mot
to defy anyone trying
     to stereotype my verbose thick plot
poetic dry (humor) rot.

The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get
came to this teetotaler, racking his noggin you bet.
Hence...I brought you Harvey off the wall banger...

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom,
in water there is bacteria."

— The End —