Evening at Home
A belly full of chestnuts and chicken
A fox terrier on my lap
Jean-Luc Ponty being sublime on the box
Too drunk to read any more
Nobody giving a shit,
Not even my progeny, or so it seemed
The long-term outlook becoming bleaker
The burning flavour of blessed whisky on my lips
Writing this in a shaky hand
It Wasn’t the Usual
Patterns are safe,
even when they’re dangerous.
I can’t afford pub prices
for either drink or food,
but instead of drinking
and either eating or starving
at home as usual that Saturday,
I met some mates at a pub
to watch a FIFA World Cup qualifying match
on large-screen TV.
It was all right,
but it left me broke,
so when I returned to the safety
of my unhealthy but workable pattern
of drinking myself to sleep
alone at home each night,
for about two or three weeks
I had to starve whilst doing it
instead of eating my usual two hot-bread-shop rolls
filled with steamed red onion, garlic, and chili peppers
with my poison.
Note
to Myself
Sitting in my grog-drinking chair
with my second bottle of after-work plonk
and some Philip Glass string quartets on the box,
I put down the historical novel I was reading,
knowing full well that I’d have to re-read the last five pages,
took my pen and notebook from my shirt pocket,
and wrote, “Made it through
another day – whew!”
At least it was there in my handwriting the next morning.
Not Exactly A Happy One
After glorious early-morning,
drought-breaking rain
the day went straight downhill.
Sticky humidity set in,
and my body responded badly
with pins and needles
up and down my arms and legs,
relentlessly fluctuating body
temperature,
tachycardia, and a queasy
stomach,
especially after returning from
my walk into town
to buy a lottery ticket,
return a book at the library,
get a haircut and beard trim,
and then – ill-advisedly –
treating myself to some greasy
pakoras at the mall
because it was my fucking
birthday,
of all things.
Sixty-seven is such a non-round
number.
My body finally came right
after drinking a bottle of wine
at three pm – two o’clock real
time;
it’s so hideous keeping idiotic
daylight savings time
more than two weeks after the
equinox.
The trouble was that my
bad-day-physically thing
had kept me from doing my
dumbbell exercises,
wrecking my sleep,
so I awoke at eleven – which
was really ten –
in the evening,
unable to return to my dreams.
Another bottle of wine did the
trick,
but that was one more
than my body or budget really
needed.
The
World of Fiction
I was getting to the end of a Doctor Siri novel,
reading about hard-ass, big-time, high-level
intrigue, corruption, smuggling, and blackmail,
plus, of course, the cold-blooded employment
of cold-blooded professional assassins
by ruthless American megalomaniacs in Southeast
Asia ,
when I looked down at the hard-headed innocence
of my elderly fox terrier
snoring blissfully under the coffee table,
and then turned my head to gaze
at the explosion of floral colour
growing out of the pots on the patio
outside my open front door,
and still I reached for my bottle of cheap wine.
Palatable
During the beastliness of high
summer,
the most palatable period of
daytime
is in the early afternoon,
when the sun is no longer
blistering
my east-facing front patio,
allowing me to gaze
at my increasingly shaded
garden
through the open door
with the fan blowing,
whilst I’m about halfway
through my first bottle of
wine.
It’s more a matter of feeling not dead
than of actually feeling alive.
My
Vista
Whenever I’m doing the washing
up
or otherwise doing kitchen
stuff
at or near the sink,
I can take a moment to cast my
gaze
out the window and watch
my potted lemon and bay trees
dying from neglect –
unless, of course, if it’s dark
outside.
My Days’ High
Points
Pissing.
Shitting.
Showering.
Sometimes reading.
The first drink.
Falling asleep.
The Pots On My Patio
I went off marigolds in 2012
after cultivating them for decades
and decided to embrace begonias instead.
Fickle me.
Composed As the
Grog Takes Hold
Shit! What a fucking day!
And there’s another one
tomorrow.
Shit!
