Let us compare
our old notes
regarding ruination
[Mine’s a pint]
and then
put a rounded-down value
on our statements
Slow now – sip –
and assay our undoings
Ignore your familial
misdirections
We should keep our peace –
you – your king-size needs
Smother your grinding
snorts of indiscretion
and offer me wordless
quiescence
Do not read
my poetry
Inextinguishable thoughts
said Mary
My
verse
stacks
are
[more than ever]
shored
by
wrecks’
timbers
Here is a quaint inn
of unshaven drunks spewing
small pools
of table-brewed hope
Ageing men sicken
with what they know
They compare
fat volumes
of pub-roughed notes
You now look
like your blood-tied
carrier
[Some women
bear
hangovers
like their mother]