Happy Hour at The Black Tulip

The problem with drinking
revolves around honesty.
Around a devoted lush
we hear our faults itemized
later, incanted, the repetition
pared-down to a word
(usually compound) forehead,
bad-kiss, monobrow, mushmouth,
disbeliever, deadboylover, pigeon
but not always. But then
the booze/truth runs out
and there’s no way of knowing
what’s wrong with us.
The liquor inside us lies
Tells us we’re profound
When really we’re just drunk,
Not deep, but deepening
To the shade of dark
Indecisive as that flower.

At the black tulip hour
the minds dribbles the ball
Up and down the court
of possibility and there’s
no fairer place to play
save for yesterday
which is an etch-a-sketch
we shake out at whim
and re-begin. The clouds
not portabella, not straw,
not wood, nor shitake,
not wild. Just clouds
stuck bulbous against
a one-dimensional sky.
At the black tulip hour
We’ve said enough
about the sky. The problem
with dreamers is evident.