the loneliness of the chain-smoking alcoholic

by the cbw

Using my bow-flexed guns to move my drink of choice (gin and tonic) from wood-stained table-top 2 my un-quenched lips I think of things gone past and things going to pass; my motion enacts a sensation that reflects my situation, which is, paradoxically or not, pretty repetitive.  Part of me wants 2 calculate the number of times I have drank this drink, thought this thought, and experienced this experience, yet, another, quite distinct part of my fragile psyche wants 2 know if these trivial things are considered building blocks, like legos and experience.  Athletics and academics stress the importance of repetitions (like how I got the aforementioned ‘guns’ or ‘bi’s’ or, more simply, muscles 2 perform this somewhat comforting action), but the constant pursuit of finding a truth at the bottom of a bottle is oft derided as relatively pointless and counter-productive, which in my state of mind, itself seems counter-intuitive b/c how is someone going to get good at something w/o practice?  But then again some ever-changing ‘surgeon general’ (who commands the respect of someone in the army but also would seem 2 not recommend armed combat as a ‘healthy’ activity; again conundrum I hope 2 remember later) is constantly telling me in written print that alcohol can have serious health risks.  After a draining big-gulp of my drink, I exaggeratedly ‘pound’ the empty (not including non-melted ice-cubes, mere afterthoughts anyway, really deterrents 4 a true drinker) glass on the indistinct, some-hue of brown lumber separating me from bartender and patron, and casually order another with the universal twirl of one raised index finger.  Still contemplating the solipsistic thoughts running nascar laps in my mind, I pull out a generic bic lighter and move time forward by inhaling some soothing carcinogens (Marlboro red, in this particular case, if someone really needs 2 know, like matlock or perry mason or something if this would ever be re-created in my ongoing series of acts that seem 2be crimes against humanity).

Arriving with my next drink is a follow-up internal thought of maybe/maybe not inconsequential (albeit somewhat tangential) implications: is this very drink unique?  I mean it is my fifth drink on this very-non-particular afternoon in a bar that I have already imbibed many other drinks of the same or differentiating spirits many a time of half-forgotten (or is that half-remembered) lore, so does this experience render any and all of these ‘drinks’ as something evolutionary?  The e-word of course relating more towards the meaning of accrued advancement as opposed to the more common euphemism known as drunken philosophy (although there is a martial arts known as drunken boxing, which gets more complicated when related by to my surgeon general ruminations a few minutes before); my cigarette is almost done, and new thoughts complicate this train-wreck of box-car simplifications.  Pattern set 2 repeat: lift glass, sip drink (since glass is near full), carefully deposit glass, and try to remember and arrange previous private posits.  Questions unbound, theories unravel.  This is no place for a man with a home, but possibly the last bastion for an aimless soul trying 2 make a new tome; wasn’t that how the new frontier operated?  But (that word always tempering the advance), what do the words ‘new’ and ‘frontier’ mean anymore in a constantly contextually dependent global atmosphere?  Questions, then drink, more questions, more drink: the cycle seems like some sort of pin-wheel of adolescent past, except with abstract warning labels attached.

An ashtray filled with how many but(t)s.  An analogy seems like it could be intelligently designed 2 link this observation with my present situation, so instead, I reach into that finite packet of nicotine-rich neural addictors and pluck another lucky cig just peg-legged 4 further justification.  Lighter up, thumb twitch, ember lit, inhale deeply, exhale expertly.  Ahh, yes, know I remember that the only memory worth holding in one’s ravaged mind is this: action provokes reaction.  So elemental that some charts have gotten into periodical debates about what impact science has on newspapers, or something 2 that extent.  My drink is almost done and I feel a horse kicking the back of my head.  I would not classify the feeling as pain, but maybe more pretentiously as a pang, in the neck, so 2 (k)not speak.  I laugh out-loud at this thought and glance around at this unintended outburst, sure someone will see something in me that I long to erase, or mourn to forget; either way, it causes some sort of mix of exultation and confusion.  Cigarette in hand, I finish this inconsequential (I’ve decided) drink and motion for another round for the man no one refers 2 as norm; not never.

My stool is of some sort of wood that I would incorrectly guess as pine simply because my increasingly drunken mind makes the connection between its legs and the shapes of baseball bats, maybe of the 33 oz. variety.  It is an odd contemplation considering my affinity for craftsmanship (esp. w/r/t woodworking) and my growing awareness of the devastating effects of deforestation.  I read recently about the conflicting impulses of ego versus eco and the best way societies (as whole and separate) need 2 confront some sort of issues of varying degrees of import; it sounds real, deal pseudo-intellectual when I think about it, so I take another lunging gulp of my nest drink.  I suddenly think that if there was ever a term that has had an unheralded-lie miniscule cachet it has 2be the term ‘ubiquity.’  In fact a lot of u-terms have a lot of ‘splaining 2 do, imhdo.  This piece of wisdom I half-haphazardly scrawl on some bar napkin with a pen from the tender’s receipt-keep-all apron; the irony is only quarter-drawn on me, so I smirk 2 myself, fourgetting that the eyes may be watching me.  I decide 2 equine my meaning at some future time and polish off that eighth (or is that ninth) wonder of my immediate world.  As I pay my tab (generous tip, but for who always remains unseen), I think one final thought: cheers, steers, queers, we all exist as some thing under some (real or imagined) gun and that is bar-factotum-none.

Top 40

Casey Kasem was counting
backwards, in the shadow of
the eternal teenager.
He sent out a special request
for more copper.
On WestWoodOne
he was,
but in his heart
he knew himself two.
Every night, his mantra.
'Never stop
reaching for the stars.'

Emergency Cigarette

This window is key
In the late spring and summer
There'll be a nice breeze.

heat haiku

it's too god damned hot
i feel like ending it all
when will autumn come?

The Word(s)

Following an afternoon of fun,
we re-convene for the evening session.
There is a lag in energy and
motivation until a suggestion is
made. The motion is seconded.
I summon the parties with
my Mexican gavel and American
spoon. With the help of the martyr
Prometheus, we boil over.

-Who’s the biggest bad-ass?
-I’ve a Hamilton.

Moving to my left, first I, then
The Word, fall off the table teetering
on the precipice of reality.

It’s the lighting that’s important
here. Like everything else (unfortunately)
you can’t have too much, or it
bleaches out the un-reality.

With paints in hand, and the door
for a canvas, time stops. The Word
says he’s comfortable. He could stand
there forever, holding his three
instruments of bliss: brush, beer and tube.
With my eyes open, I can’t see.
I’ve become blind, but I’ve created
a new way of communicating…
non-verbally of course. While I
talk, my right hand transcribes my
words into symbols that I’ll
never decipher.

I’m out of my mind, I say.
My relationship with sanity is connected
only tenuously, by a very thin
thread. I tell The Word that I
need to float, to avoid any snagging
or severing.

After a long period of static time,
a large chunk passes by
without ever announcing its presence.

I’m teaching myself to read,
while The Word rests his eyes.
He lies on his back with his
legs up, forming a mirror-imaged,
dislocated ‘J’. Plaid on plaid,
he sails away on a ship of
cotton (not) manufactured in China.
I cannot catch him, so I light
a smoke, and hope that our
journey into the clouds ends
with the sun shining.