THE ALCOHOLIC ALTERNATIVE by John Grey

Cannot love. Not tonight. 

So you hang out in a bar,

stand before the glowing racks

of liquor bottles, 

catch a little television,

conversation, down alcohol,

dark but unbinding.

Crisis at home. No doubt,

something of yours, even now,

is being torn to shreds,

sabers are drawn, 

a battle goes on without you.

But the bar, with its cry 

of another and another, 

resounds in your ears

like a lover’s needs,

the first, in a long time,

that you can possibly meet.

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Ellipsis. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Washington Square Review and Red Weather.