DRINK LIKE OLD HOLLYWOOD. by Daniel W. Wright

We should all be so lucky
To drink
like old Hollywood drunks
We’re all amateurs
by comparison

Drinking nothing stronger
than gin
before breakfast
or being able
to call a bachelor pad
“Cirrhosis by the sea”

We would all be so honored
as to drink so much
that you woke up
in a Chicago asylum
or to know
you’d be buried
with six bottles of whiskey

We would all thank the gods
if we drank so much
we woke up the next day
married to Richard Burton
or Liz Taylor

To be a member
of the American Olympic drinking team
To drink so much
the onset bar got shut down
by the head of the studio
To have so many stories
told about you
that nobody knows
which ones are true
Legends last longer anyway

We would all be so lucky

A poet of the no collar work force, Daniel W. Wright is a mid-western son who loves and loathes the red brick town that surrounds him. A longtime writer of wild nights and whiskey tributes, Wright speaks for the lover in every loner. He is currently the author of five chapbooks of poetry, the most recent being The Death of the Ladies Man with Bad Jacket Press. His work has appeared in the Gasconade Review as well as underground zines Bad Jacket and Crappy Hour.