poem of the day 12.02.14

to a writer who stopped drinking

i guess the easy joke is: more for me

you say that you stopped drinking because…it was time

well, you must have found something

that the rest of us stuck down here in the mud

are still searching for

or else you’re full of shit

you say with alcohol you always wanted

to bring the party

well, there was your first mistake

it’s easy to love the company of the multitudes

when drinking

hell, i love everyone when i’ve had five or six

only i do it from within the privacy of my own home

i’m willing to bet that this was all a ploy on your part

a way to get you back in the pages of the new york times

with that over-used sinatra quote

because your articles on the club scene were dull

and your investigative journalism went nowhere

why not give up writing instead?

from where i sit, man, it seems the safer bet

but, no, it was the booze that left you hollow

it had to be

couldn’t be the lump of writerly shit

staring back at you in the mirror every morning

the man who could no longer get the word down on the paper

it was the hangovers

those dirty, dirty hangovers that you got once a week

i had a hangover once for two months

and you didn’t see me writing about it in a national paper

and, yes, i know no one asked me to but…

this all seems so trite

another writing doing battle with the bottle and winning

another writing doing battle with the bottle in general

and fucking writing about it

why not be the writer who gave up oranges

they’re in season now

so at the very least you’d be topical once again

maybe now your liver will give out

out of boredom and neglect

maybe some sober chippy will give you herpes

you can start a book club to pass the DTs

instead of sipping gin and tonics at happy hour

and telling people who wasted you are

or maybe you can finally go to sudan and get real

change the world

win a pulitzer

write a memoir’

and have one of your recovered buddies

write a breathtaking review of it

so that he (or she) can concur with all that you’ve gone through

in your journey toward sobriety

you wicked old drunk you

then come awards time

you can stand there and black tail and a tie

a glass of ginger ale in your hand

a full man in bloom

scanning the room for all of those well-greased swine

standing on your shoulders

indeed.