Sunday, June 17, 2007

Why we drink (or why we shouldn't)

This is a 'sketch' only, not really ready to see the light of day. But I wanted to post a 'drinking poem', by a proper author, and couldn't root one out (in the present chaos of my apartment, my 'Drinker's Verse' anthology has mysteriously disappeared); so, this is all I have.




We drink to lay the dust
Of old dry thoughts
That sting our eyes
And clog our throats.
But drink soaks down
And fills our minds
Till the drains overflow
And raise from deep
The sullied trash, the debris
Of our earlier lives;
The flotsam and the jetsam,
The sewer stench.
And our eyes are moist again,
Our voices stopped.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As you have mentioned in the title yourself: "Why we shouldn't"....

Well we shouldn't, because then we get to FEEL as we should as earthlings that we are. Feeling is a luxury, even if it is sometimes uncomfortable or painful. Not all earthlings are so lucky to be able to feel as much as the lucky ones -or unlucky ones, that I leave to the judgement of the reader.

The British Cowboy said...

Hank Williams Junior has already posed this question in the classic "Family Tradition"

It's a great audience participation number, with the chorus running, (with audience replies...)

Hank, why do you drink?
(To get drunk)
Why do you roll smoke?
(To get high)
Why do you live out the songs that you wrote?
(To get laid)
Over and over, everybody made my prediction,
So if I get stoned, I'm just carrying on,
And old family tradition

Hank had a rather strained relationship with his family...

The song also includes one of the greatest verses ever...

"Lordy I have loved some ladies,
And I have loved Jim Beam,
And they both tried to kill me,
In 1973..."

So there is your answer, Froog.

Why we drink? To get drunk. It made not be the most elegant but if it is good enough for Junior, who are we to argue.