SubTerrain » poetry

their tossing ships

on this more traditional view, the self was to be
regarded as an enormous whisky vat, in which
experiences fermented quietly
until they were mellow and mature.
–Terry Eagleton, How to Read a Poem

the miraculous alcoholics capture and tap the enormous whisky vat
of the self, their dilated blood vessels, their staggering gait.
evading the brightwork, leaping athwartships,
their revelry, loutish yet stalwart, plaits
tradition with dangerous irrationality,
that reckless sedan of a catamaran
named the death of man. It’s true
pilots absorb booze more rapidly
at high altitudes, their livers tall castles
of milkthistle, but goats and louts half
sunk in stouts and moats,
peering out english murder holes
to shout, who knows where
there’s beer, or filled to
the brim with toasts,
might be true poet poltroons,
sloshed neptunes, tridentless,
allowing our subterranean,
previously-unheard-of selves
fluency, music, crisp exactitudes.