L
ord, curse all G-men.
Curse all still-pluckin’ muckrakers.
Smite that mangy swamp fox neck-wringin’ peahens in my wattle pen.
There’s mildew pissin’ in the yeast, wettin’ down my schnapps.
Blind malt weevils porkin’ in the hops.
I’m stuck with a late autumn rose; one lustrum long in the thorn.
My heart is bald.
I pine for mashier pot gosh and more harvest moonshizzle.
I pine for buxomer hooch and dippier sot swiggle.
I’ll whirl like a whiz-jenny scorched to a turpentine cat on a tongue
and groove barstool.
I’ll dance in the spirit with rattlers at the First Pentecostal snake church.
O Spiritus Fermenti who changed stump water to spumante.
O greater-than-Gatsby grape squeezer sautéing Caesar’s ghost:
alfa all my roosters with Eggland’s Best omegas
pelt me this day with cornbread and leavened whiskey dodgers
withdraw thy copper stopper from my menopausal drip line—
mirth this empty fruit jar with uncorked latter rain.