Hey, it’s ten o’clock,
Time for another snort,
The Elixir: Clan MacGregor
“Blended Scotch Whisky,”
Spelled without the e,
“Imported from Scotland,
Distilled, aged, blended &
Shipped, by Alexander MacGregor & CO.,”
Our boys in Glasgow
“Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government.”
(Read more: www.bobdylan.com/  us/songs/subterranean-homesick-blues#ixzz3aKTl­eIUb http://www.bobdylan.com/  us/songs/subterranean-homesick-blues#ix­zz3aKTleIUb)
To quote my pal, Rabbi Zimm,
Which is what we called Dylan
Back home in Minnesota.
No wonder he left town.
He’s been heard to blame the winters,
But I know it was the rabid,
Anti-Semitism, driving
Robert Allen Zimmerman
(Hebrew name שבתאי זיסל בן אברהם
[Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham]),
Driving his escape outta town.
It was virulent Jew hatred
Driving him away,
Exiling him from Duluth.
But, I digress.

I have written this morning’s poem
Many times before, giving it the title
“BUKOWSKI MORNINGS” last time.
I get my Clan MacGregor at
Wal-Mart, $16.97, 1.75 liter,
40% ALC./VOL. (80 PROOF).
Another astonishing value &
Habit I can afford.
One more shining example of
Walton Family benevolence,
Give us our daily bread,
Give to us,
Us the many,
The many shamed 99%.
The Walton crystal ball,
Anticipating the future way back when.
Going even so far as to
Sponsor a beloved family TV show,
1972 – 2010?
Is a run like that, fecking possible?
Still broadcast today,
Hallmark Channel.
The Waltons:  John Boy, Olivia
Grandma Esther &
Grandpa Zebulon,
Played by, his Reverence,
The cherished Will Geer.
How could you not esteem The Waltons?
The Walton Family: shrewd grocers of
Bentonville, Arkansas?
Lovable Sam—the one with the Club—
The association, not the clubfoot
Nor, the giant troglodyte club,
Wielded by Old Sam--
Mr. Walton, truly a swinging-****
In his day, intergalactic, a Mega-chain
Retailer of “a vast selection of Food, Apparel,
Home Goods & Electronics, not to mention
Garden shrubs & Patio Furniture.”
Again, I digress.

Clan MacGregor: no single malt liquor;
No Glenfiddich “Robert the Bruce Flagon,” $300 bottle;
No Balvenie “21 Year Old Port Wood Finish,” $200.00.  
No Laphroaig, no Glenlivet.
No Highland, no Lowland,
No Islay, nor Speyside . . . for me.
Not one drop of single-malted
Mist of the moors shall pass my lips.
Maybe I don’t know any better?
More likely, I can’t afford to,
Scotch snorting snobs be-******,
Clan MacGregor does the job nicely,
Nicely, thank you very much.

Detroit dropped away
after the big band wedding,
where The Sheik of Araby
climbed the hot pine hall
& the two of us killed
a bottle of Laphroaig
that we bought by the church
from the bulletproof glass man.

The next day,
she got the call -
he had died
in her room.
The marriage
began to sag
at that exact moment -
something failed,
something failed,
something closed
that never reopened.
I was alone
breathing
her desperate air,
her secrets almost
off the tongue,
almost vulnerable,
but left unshared,
carried alone,
held away from me -
I found it out the hard way.

I still feel it,
the green empire
of the reception night
punctuated by her
lipsticked cigarettes,
& the trumpets calling
both of us back inside
for last call.

As I sat alone in bed listening to the cycling whirl of the dishwasher,
I wished that I was ordering a second glass of Laphroaig,
feeling a warm glow move through my body,
drunk on an elixir of your laughter and scotch,
wondering why we had let three months slip away.

Yet,

miles and hours disappeared,

and it was

April 19, 2014,

and I was

terrified of how the night would

end.

ten seconds into her retinue
I knew
she weren't my ingenue
still I broke
out the Laphroaig Cairdeas.
Might have been my charity
more likely her hips
reminded me of the Seine
an opera Bastille
her lips enshrined
at the Musée d'Orsay,
her eyes dazed
I couldn't help myself.

A quartet has lulled me
to sleep this week:
Ardbeg, Bowmore,
Talisker, Laphroaig.

I'm holding this in,
living coughing strings
of days oh so carefully.

Walking home
through the drowning
grove in the sunken park,
I vacillate like a nurse's hand
choosing veins. Either way,
blood is coming,
with a blooming bruise.

My particular curse,
falling into these affairs
that end up straitjacketing me,
choosing the wrong things.
I need someone who'll reach,
but narrowly, narrowly.