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. 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.