It is sad when people destroy themselves. I loved Jack Daniels and grew to regret it. But it is also just sad to look at those old pictures. All those hopes, all that passion and suffering and ecstasy. All that boredom that assumes things last forever. All those young faces shrunken and shriveled and ready now for annihilation. Sorry to be so melodramatic! Your poem brought out this deep response in me.
Thanks for the comment. Even without death, the waste of living is enormous. I've landed OK but what might I have done if I didn't go to sleep sloshed every night for 15 years.
Thank you for reading and for your comment! I remember the first time I tried Jack Daniels. I took a sip and a remarkable wave of pleasure pasted through me - quite unexpected. I looked at the bottle, read the label, had another sip - and another and another. All whiskey had that effect on, but none more than Black Jack. This went on for 15 years. Drinking doesn't protect you from suffereing but it keeps you from learning from it.
Thank you for reading. It is honest I hope. The boy’s name was Todd and I remember him at his mothers breast and later when I was an older friend. Then, a decade or two later, I hear his is dead from drink.
I've seen drink destroy an aunt, an uncle, one of my closest friends so I know - it's a painful subject & you've written the truth...which is what al poetry should at least attempt.
wonderful. I like the suspended sentence, with its monotonous fate, in the octave, and the punch of the sestet, with its finality in the having of "other friends," a different fate.
Thanks for the restack!
Thanks for the restack!
It is sad when people destroy themselves. I loved Jack Daniels and grew to regret it. But it is also just sad to look at those old pictures. All those hopes, all that passion and suffering and ecstasy. All that boredom that assumes things last forever. All those young faces shrunken and shriveled and ready now for annihilation. Sorry to be so melodramatic! Your poem brought out this deep response in me.
Thanks for the comment. Even without death, the waste of living is enormous. I've landed OK but what might I have done if I didn't go to sleep sloshed every night for 15 years.
Thank you for reading and for your comment! I remember the first time I tried Jack Daniels. I took a sip and a remarkable wave of pleasure pasted through me - quite unexpected. I looked at the bottle, read the label, had another sip - and another and another. All whiskey had that effect on, but none more than Black Jack. This went on for 15 years. Drinking doesn't protect you from suffereing but it keeps you from learning from it.
"Drinking doesn't protect you from suffering but it keeps you from learning from it." Jesus, put that in a poem too.
Bill, I love the anthropomorphizing of booze into old pals with J names. Very clever, yet touching.
Thanks Bruce! All those J whiskeys with men's names!
Really fine poem - true because it's not maudlin or sentimental: it's honest!
Thank you for reading. It is honest I hope. The boy’s name was Todd and I remember him at his mothers breast and later when I was an older friend. Then, a decade or two later, I hear his is dead from drink.
I've seen drink destroy an aunt, an uncle, one of my closest friends so I know - it's a painful subject & you've written the truth...which is what al poetry should at least attempt.
wonderful. I like the suspended sentence, with its monotonous fate, in the octave, and the punch of the sestet, with its finality in the having of "other friends," a different fate.
Thank you reading and commenting. Monotonous fate is right - the same thing night after night and life after life.