Grog Stuff

               The Changing Whisky Landscape

For many years my drop of choice

was Wilson’s New Zealand whisky.

Not only was it Kiwi-made

and the cheapest available,

but its flavour truly appealed to my taste buds.

When I shifted from the West Side to Claudelands in 2006,

it was $29.99 for a 750 millilitre bottle

and displayed on a shelf behind the register at about eye level

at Singh’s Kiwi Liquor in the Fairfield shops,

a short walk from my home.

After they stopped distilling Wilson’s

and Singh’s supply ran out

they gave me the ‘Wilson’s $29⁹⁹’ price label from their wall,

which is now on the wall of my home office.

After that the cheapest whisky was Glen Nevis for a while,

and then, aside from occasional sales, it was Ballantine’s,

which crept up from $31.99 to $34.99 a bottle over time,

occasionally going on sale at the latter price at two for $65,

and taking Wilson’s place on the display shelf.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Ballantine’s

because it was the first whisky for which I acquired a taste,

back when I was 14 years old

and my mother was away

with my stepfather in Cuba.

The last time I bought whisky

before keying this onto the hard drive and screen

the price of Ballantine’s had gone up,

and full-litre bottles of Dewar’s occupied the place of honour

at $32.99.

Ballantine’s was two shelves down.

Thinking in terms of price, I noted to the clerk

that the whisky landscape had certainly changed.

Thinking in terms of display,

he replied that Ballantine’s had gone down.

Puzzled at first, I replied that no, it’d gone up.

We left it at that.

I think old Mr Singh had sold the place, anyway.

              Drinkers Advising Drinkers

I read a series of quotes

by H.L. Mencken and Charles Bukowski,

both drinkers and both writers,

purporting to be the rules for drinking.

Bukowski’s, of course, were much looser.

As someone who both drinks and writes,

I have no rules or even advice

for others on the subject.

You know what works for you,

and if you don’t, nothing I can say will enlighten you about that.

One thing, though:

if you like sweet, sugary booze

or sugary sweets with your booze,

be prepared for nasty headaches.

                     Two Lives

Yes, grog helps me to endure my solitude,

to cope with it, live with it,

before sleep at last brings me dreams

of being involved with others.

         Executive Decision

It looked as if another nothing day

was on its way.

After considering

putting some of

the Drambuie

that Abbie got me at Duty Free

into my predawn coffee –

caffè corretto –

I came to the tentative decision

that although no operational barriers,

such as work,

were in place,

drinking all day

really wasn’t worth

the disruption of my

daily modus operandi,

not to mention budget,

so I decided

to wait

until lunch.

       The Price of Price Sensitivity

The week that I composed this

the affordable plonk at the Pak’n Save

was a Chilean cleanskin merlot.

Although it was considerably more fruity than I prefer,

I decided after the first half dozen or so gulps

that this really didn’t matter,

even though I’d had to shudder

after swallowing some of them.

        Dirty Little Secret

I wouldn’t be so bloody poor

if I didn’t have to drink

two bottles

of the cheapest plonk

that the Pak’n Save sells

in order to shorten and survive

the lonely hours

between when I get

too tired to work

and the onset

of blessed oblivion.

      Not At The Centre

My daily afternoon dates

with wine bottles

have become increasingly

unsatisfactory,

but they’re still better than

sobriety,

which has become increasingly

unbearable.

One rainy Wednesday afternoon

I wondered who was thinking of me

just then,

and concluded that

it wasn’t bloody likely

that anybody was –

certainly not the bottle

of cheap Aussie shiraz

that I was cuddling.

                Hard Glass Cuddles

According to the assertively cliché aphorism,

self-pity sucks,

but when I caught myself hugging and cuddling

my wine bottle again,

it struck me as an obvious truth

that I am indeed pathetic,

and no other observer was present.

Not Getting Any Younger

                          Success

So there I was,

more than nine months into my sixty-sixth year,

sitting by myself at my table after a workday

during which I’d done one job worth ten dollars Australian,

piddled away at a few verses,

and played heaps of computer solitaire,

clumsily sewing a button back onto the frayed cuff

of an at least twenty-year-old shirt,

a no-longer-completely-full bottle of cheap plonk

on the table beside it.

      Fingernails, Ageing, & Hedges

When I was younger I only had to

clip my fingernails

once every month or two.

Now that I’m old

it seems to me as if

I have to clip them

every few hours.

Okay, I hyperbolise.

Still, it calls to mind those plants,

like jasmine and photinia and box hedge,

that thrive on pruning,

and grow back thicker and more insistently

when people give them a good trimming.

             Watching

Being old is just being old,

just another series of moments,

doing less participating and more watching –

watching hideous havoc on Aljazeera,

with the sound off, of course,

and watching my residence,

with which I’m saddled

because it’s also my property,

quietly deteriorate and crumble.

Being old is just being old.

Although neither better nor worse,

it’s still not like being young.

                           The Processor

Man, it feels like it’s all over, but it’s not.

My future is almost certainly entirely behind me.

My metabolic thermoregulation

– great-sounding term, that –

has been becoming increasingly crappy for years,

making it take an hour or more for me to recover

even from just walking to the grocery store,

and of course I have to walk

because the size of my pension

makes having a car uneconomical,

and the size of my cataracts makes driving irresponsible.

Walking, however, now irritates

my spinal arthritis,

making what used to be a pleasure painful.

The nervous rashes on my forearms –

neurodermatitis, for any readers who also liked

metabolic thermoregulation –

itch and burn almost constantly

and bleed, sometimes heavily, from time to time.

The erectile dysfunction goes without saying,

which is generally irrelevant,

considering my ineptitude with other people

and the faintness of my pheromones.

Being asleep is far preferable to being awake,

that’s for sure.

I’m more than ready to die,

but it aint happening.

I just keep processing edible matter

into shit.

     The Dogless Elderly & Weeding

I have no idea how many of us exist –

lonely old people on pensions

who drink too much

because grog provides

the illusion of companionship and acceptance

when little or none exists in the visible world.

The lucky ones have dogs

or have the skills, the physical flexibility,

the will,

and the outside taps

needed for maintaining gardens.

When I adopted a nine-year-old dog

I considered myself lucky.

       Sea Change On Land

I’ve been noticing

that by becoming most definitely

a fragile, pain-riddled, nap-taking

old person,

and therefore no longer just

a person in general,

I’m experiencing the process of changing,

both perceptibly and perceptually,

from one of Us into one of Them,

and that accustoming myself to the reality

that my being one of Them

means that I’ve acquired

a different Us.

       Changes Over Time

The older I’ve become,

it seems, to me at least,

that my mind’s become increasingly sharper,

my insights have become deeper and clearer,

my analytic skills have continually improved,

and my urge to create has continued unabated.

It’s with this mind, which is as me as ever,

that I observe my body falling apart,

and since I also basically survive

on a small pension,

I can do little more than watch

as my house falls apart, too.

Outside The Terminal

Standing and waiting.

Standing and waiting.

Watching for the car

as meaningless time slipped by.

When I’d been younger

I would become incensed

when made to wait,

but I remained floatingly calm,

knowing that the wait

would soon be over,

as would everything else,

glorying in how little time

I have left, anyway.

             The Evils of Marijuana

I used to smoke weed every day

that it was available

and that I felt safe from the tentacles of authority,

and for 44 years it made every one of those days better;

but then when I was 63 years old I gave it away

because I didn’t want my days to be better.

I just wanted them to as similar

and as flat

as possible.

I took it up again when I was 69.

It’s mixed well with the opioids and opiates

that I take for arthritis.

It’s also helped me

to keep functioning

psychologically and otherwise.

               Paranoia & Common Sense

When I told her that, after seven years on the sidelines,

I’d started smoking cannabis regularly again,

she replied that it just made her too paranoid,

and I said, look:

I’m seventy fucking years old,

I’m white, for shit’s sake,

and for the first time since I stopped shaving

more than a half a century ago,

having a beard doesn’t make a man look suspicious.

The cops just don’t look to fuck with me any more.

So far, so good.

           The Voluntary Sector

My last lover may have done me wrong,

but at least she fooled me into feeling

as if she loved me from time to time.

This doesn’t matter, though,

because I’m old and stuff and who gives a shit.

It took me a while, being socially thick,

but after a few months

I could tell that my neighbour was playing me.

What the game or the tune is

she’s never said, and I haven’t asked,

and it seems to change from time to time,

but it sure has increased my feeling of objectification.

This doesn’t matter, though,

because I’m old and stuff and who gives a shit.

Another woman, I know, aint all right in the head,

but she did a passable impression of friendship for a while,

then began sending me messages

telling me that she was going to drop by

for a drink and some conversation,

but she never did.

This doesn’t matter, though,

because I’m old and stuff and who gives a shit.

Maybe I should contact some visit-the-elderly agency

to send a volunteer by on some regular basis

just to visit the old fart,

and maybe play a game of dominos.

They wouldn’t be allowed to drink whisky with me, though.

Kind of impersonal, maybe,

but also maybe more honest and straightforward.

For hugs and cuddles

I suppose there’s the brothels,

but I can’t afford that.

This doesn’t matter, though,

because I’m old and stuff and who gives a shit.