Work turns to drink and back.

After spending the week in the bilge of a boat

grinding down its rusted guts

till Asa and I were sodden monsters

as if in a mouldering photo

crawling out like ghosts antiqued.

I was then wrapped up in a drunk

met by a past girlfriend and her friends

that rambled like the song of a mockingbird

across the city of Seattle.

We drank a ferocious volume

and a competition in drinking got serious

Then we spoke in nonsense and pretended it was real

and the sun came up and we pretended it hadn’t

Then we spoke real things and pretended they were nonsense

and my body felt like the trunk of a bristlecone pine

ancient and stiff

bending my legs barely at the hips. I swayed along.

For some reason I was proud. I felt as if there was great tradition in my state

as if we had tapped into something ancient.

we all were part of an endless chain that could not be altered by the march of civilization or of time. No matter what happened.

We could all live life sitting down.We could all drink through our eyes. Or we could all see the information of everything all the time.

But We would all still be human and feel the need sometimes to burn the candle at both ends,

and walk stiffly out into the day.