I. American Jeremiad

“I love a martini, two at the most. Three – I’m under the table; four, I’m under the host.”
– Dorothy Parker
(The Algonquin Hotel, 1929)

Shakespeare is dutifully remembered
for his plaintive sonnets and perfect plays.
We are ruined by his genius, forever
at a loss to be adequately pained.
Today, we are on the opposite side
of Elizabethan diction; we brood
in prosaic tones and truncated lines,
we cheer blandness and raise brandy balloons
to Sandburg, Hemingway, Williams, and Frost,
those cryptic purveyors of emptiness
who’ve dulled the edges of our lips and thoughts.
Should we remix their drinks, I would request
this recipe: a splash of Whitman’s Dick,
& a dash of Emily Dickinson’s Wit.

II. Pre Profundis: The Ballad of Hyacinthus and Marsyas

“Those whom the gods love grow young.”
– Oscar Wilde
(Cadogan Hotel, April 5, 1895)

How I hate that unfathomable boy,
who pretended to love me in the guise
of a man! He has robbed me of all joy,
my good name, and my fortune with his lies.
And yet, he was a celestial body
devouring light, bending me to his will:
I was wittingly drawn to the dark rings
of that moon, the circumference of my hell.
Now gilded snakes pervade my dreams; they slip
with cool abandon down my bed to sleep
and brush the trembling reaches of my lips.
Nysaeans—why have you forsaken me?
For Apollo kissed that indolent youth,
then flayed my skin for blowing on a flute.

III. The Idea of Disorder at Key West

“By God, I wish I had that Hemingway here right now!
I’d knock him out with a single punch!”
– Wallace Stevens
(Casa Marina, 1935)

Oh! Blessed rage for order—pale Ramón!
Papa is a friend of Dionysus,
as are we—let us tip our hats to him,
as well our cups: to the Bull of Minos
on this isle of bones, who sloshes about
its shallow reefs! I give this humble toast
to dull his roar beyond our pink redoubt
which mists the trawlers idling on the coast
and drapes their empty decks with silver foam.
Let us conspire to lure him with a string
of hyacinths beside his water hole,
that stretch from our veranda to the sea.
I’ll don my mask, you tune your pithy lyre:
the Maenads fan their cocktails by the fire.

IV. Delirium Tremens

“A straw hat on, my eyes flushed, might I resemble the former
preacher who painted a pool table and then maimed himself?”
– Rush Rankin
(Descanso Beach Club)

The seaweed bends with the ocean, a field of women
kneeling, then standing row upon row, as if to offer
a benediction to the shore. Already I forget I am
floating in this frigid Catalina water,
not some ghost surveying southern France—
nor an ominous crow or a half-mad painter
scanning a landscape after a pint of absinthe—
A boat circles above me, the black chain from its anchor
stretches like an umbilical cord to the blanched florets
of coral below. The motor hums. A large woman peers
over the side as I ascend, her distorted contours
growing in and out of focus—and I am free,
more so than Van Gogh waking in Saint Rémy,
a dark habit caressing his cheek.

V. Dionysus Spikes the Ball

“Teenage boys, goaded by their surging hormones, run in packs
like the primal horde.”
– Camille Paglia
(Caribbean coast of Mexico)

The mermaids swing their bodies beach
to beach—like skipping stones that never sink;
they don’t suspect how far the rip tides reach
or how the sea is seething as they drink.
The Marquis purrs when hipbones slap the waves—
a gasp, a jolt, a laugh that could seduce;
Camus would note a stranger learns to crave
the shine of sweat that justifies abuse.
The boys—like oiled gods in mirrored shades—
strike statues in the surf, each sweaty boast:
a promise made of flesh the sun remakes;
Dionysus leaps and hammers down the post.
Those hips, that heat, that final feral act:
a scholar licks the salt off every fact.

VI. Do Not Go Quiet

“I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s the record.”
– Dylan Thomas, on the eve of his passing
(White Horse Tavern, Greenwich Village, 1953)

I will not sip the dark. I drink it neat—
Four Roses, please, poured quick—no word to waste.
Your bar keeps tilting, free of gravity
or is it me, untethered to this time and space?
The mind draws tight, a star to single grain,
then breaks—rose-bright, galactic, drunk with sound;
Not truth, but song flung hard against the pain
of knowing breath must spend itself, unbound.
I will not sip the dark. I drink it down.
The night still answers when I strike the bar.
My breath comes bright; my blood refuses crown
or calm—this pulse outshouts the dying star.
What’s that—my breath is neither galaxy nor rose?
A pox on both—pour on. I’ll drink until you close.

VII. Shiduri’s by the Sea

“Beside the sea she lives, the woman of the vine, the maker of wine.”
–Shin-eqi-unninni

My tavern is exclusive and discreet,
the customers irregular at times;
some drink from flasks of lapis lazuli
while others tip bejeweled carafes of wine.
Above the bar I dedicate a frame
to every famous patron I have served—
that’s Ea on the left, a tortured mage,
who drowned his sorrows when he drowned the Earth.
The Stone Men used to come on Saturday
to numb their week of service on the ship—
they were a stoic lot, but always paid
until one client smashed them all to bits.
He said his name was Gilgamesh, I think—
he crushed the pink umbrella in his drink.

VIII. “Pour me a gin

that doesn’t taste like Christmas”, she demurred,
The bartender burnished a blue coupette
mechanically nodding his head at the girl
then expertly crafted a Gin Pahit.
“I’m Dorothy, from Wichita,” she cooed,
as she sipped from her swirling crimson drink.
“And what did the bartender make for you?
A Lick and a Promise? A Sazerac?”
I peered through the edge of my empty glass
as Dorothy split into Braque-like planes.
“God’s Promise, I think. Or the Devil’s Repast.
The bartender’s torch illumined his face.
“It was a Ramos Gin Fizz,” he remarked.
“I never experiment in the dark.”