30/30: Golden Shovel poem #30

source: Beneath a Surface, History Can Hide

 

Cigarette smoke and beery breath linger beneath

Bar lights bright at closing, a

Stop sign to drinkers floating on the surface

Of drunkenness. She wonders which history

She wants to remember tomorrow, whose shoes can

Lurk under her bed, or where she will hide.

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.

 

Blogging: H Is for Harrisburg

            Jack liked making enigmatic comments, especially when he was drinking. Occasionally, he’d say he was thinking of going on a three-day bat in Harrisburg. Maybe this came from some book he read.

            Some years after he stopped drinking, he started saying, “I’m thinking of doing something irrevocable.” He was feeling bogged down in his life. I can still see him sitting at the other end of the couch, looking slightly desperate. We weren’t have any more difficulties than usual, yet his comment made me very nervous. This may have been when I opened another savings account that I didn’t tell him about. Just in case.

            But the irrevocable thing that happened was his blood-clotting disorder. Not what he had in mind. And I never asked him afterward what he’d been thinking when he made that cryptic statement.  

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April’s writing challenge is to blog every day, with each post beginning with a letter of the alphabet from beginning to end. We skip Sundays, except for April 1, so as to have 26 days in the month.

Poem-a-Day 2: He Said, She Said

He Said, She Said

He said, Can I take you out for a drink?

She said, Sure, I’d like a drink.

He said, I’ll have another.

She said, I’m doing fine.

He said, I’ll have another.

She thought, that’s a lot of glasses

lined up like a wall between them.

He said, I’ll drive you home.

She said, I’ll call a cab.

He said, I drive better when I’m drunk.

She said, I get home safer when

the driver’s not drunk.

He said, See you around.

She said, Not if I see you first.

SOLSC Day 18: Drunk Shakespeare

Drunk Shakespeare — that’s the name of a performance put on by the Drunk Shakespeare Society. I saw it tonight with my daughter and her partner (they had already seen it three times).

            The conceit is drinking: all audience members receive a shot of some liqueur (mine was red; I think it was grenadine) as we enter the theater, set up like a cozy library lounge where all the books are arranged by color of binding. There’s a bar, and you can order a variety of beers, basic wine, or esoteric cocktails. One actor each night is the designated drinker, starting off with four shots of whiskey — and an audience member is invited to drink a shot to assure us that it’s real whiskey.

           The evening is like a literate drunken college party of thespians having fun with a condensed Macbeth, with a fair amount of improv and audience participation — and more drinking. At one point, Banquo is announcing the people in attendance, and I was pointed out as Lady Gaga of the Future (prompted by my white hair and pink bangs?). Later, I was selected to choose a badass name for Banquo’s son (Fleance, in Shakespeare’s play), and when I shouted out “Gangsta-X,” I got a fistbump from Macbeth, and applause from the audience.
            If you’re ever visiting New York, and aren’t a recovering alcoholic, I highly recommend this silly romp.