Ethical Treatment

December 2016

Guess I'm not feeling the poetry tonight.

Yawning and staring into walls

Like the dregs of 2016.

Hell with it

I'm gonna,

Have a whisky.

Maybe,

Maybe scrawl nasty notes,

diarize for 2016.

Is beer allowed?

As a poet?

I've got wine and whisky but

Wine is for getting juiced,

Say, when you are still awake after midnight, and

You know your woman is not coming back.

Whisky has dual-purpose:

Those times when you feel like you might get your ass kicked:

Whisky.

And

that realm of cool sobriety,

Like after your wife dies or marriage finally fails or

You realize that none of your plans were going to be successful.

That deep empty that,

cannot be touched but for whisky, death, or life.

Beer just disappoints, in times like those.

Ethical treatment indeed!

No more requiems for 2016.

A finger I'll raise instead,

and two more fingers in between,

Fond memorial of those we lost and

Paths,

we twain ha' tread.

Salut! Because I've heard enough.

A thoughtful sip, an' finish.

And one more for the year a'heed,

That trials n' leave us diminish'd.

One more shot of kindness yet,

For one more kind word or deed.

One more yet to plane the rough,

And one to end the reed.

We're done with the aft, and on to the fore.

An' let us not forget:

They are gone but we're still here,

An' we're not finished yet.