Whiskey Bible by Bruce Morton

There it sits leather bound,
Worn and frequent found,
Screw-top bookmark marks
The spot, top-shelf all the way.
That good book has the spirit
What more can a man ask?
Word flows straight from cask
To that well-paged holy flask.

When I hear them preaching
Well then, yeh, I'm reaching
For my old whiskey bible, for
A sip of my moonshine gospel.

Not what I've done is so terrible,
But you don't know what to think.
So I tell myself, turn the cheek.
Wink, sneak a dram of forgiveness,
Turn another page in that good book.
Never ask for the proof; you have to
Believe in your thirst for salvation
When that happy hour has arrived.

Sometimes it goes down easy,
Sometimes it burns like  hell—
That old whiskey bible,
My moonshine gospel.

Bruce Morton splits his time between Bozeman, Montana and Buckeye, Arizona. His volume of poems, Simple Arithmetic and Other Artifices, was published in 2015. His poetry has appeared in various anthologies and magazines including Kansas Quarterly, Connecticut Quarterly, Spoon River Quarterly, Pembroke Magazine, North Stone Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, and San Pedro River Review.