Future Song

I drink too much to work to eat to love
To talk to laugh to think to ask to shove
To see to seek to seize to cry to call
I drink too much to any verb at all

I cannot tell terror from a tower
Horror from a hair hero from a whore
Perhaps from a promise day from an hour
Tomorrow from sorrow now from before

Each intermission managed is confusion
Each non-crude moment but an interlude
Each clear itinerary a delusion
Each appropriate remark a shocking nude

I know you well I know but cannot name you
I’ve known you long I know but don’t know when
Our talking leaves with you and I don’t blame you
Silent drink forgets all other men

One memory is crystal one thought stays
Does not betray like me or other thinking
Holds itself upright through busy days
Of slack tireless ceaseless nerveless drinking

She was mine and she’s my introspection
The face I look for seeing every face
In some scant part aware that her defection
Slinks with me ghostly going place to place

I drink too much to work to eat to love
To talk to laugh to think to ask to shove
To see to seek to seize to cry to call
I drink too much to any verb at all

Now she is all I heed and all I care for
I heed her now though she is never here
Her it was who I was always there for
Though never here enough for I was here

David McLintock