Drinking stinging piss; devouring The Shining
in the soundless-house hour
between 3 and 4 in the morning, hour of black gaps,
hour adrift and maddening, no sign of shore,
I’ve renounced sober. I fear the landfall of dawn
Shuddering as rum and a found-it-in-the-fridge juice mix
burns the throat. Each sugarwater/liquor sip is a pinch
Sickened with each sip, I tip my cup
in support of narcissist Jack Torrance,
my idol, my guy, the only bro around at 3.49.
I drink to his narrative in a book-binge-blitz,
I forgive his sins ‘cause he’s my bro-tagonist
He’s a writer too. He’s ego-teased, too.
My bud instructs how to get fucked-up while he cuts
up kids in a blizzard.
Some of us just can’t handle stress, Jack, you know that,
we all bend til we snap,
we’re so on-edge, so insomniatic,
we’d do that massacre shit for a little bliss.
we all fall from innocence when we’re on the piss.
I turn pages, I sip and wince, enthralled as Jack hacks
through snowdrifts. Miserable, suicidal,
crushed by an unfinished novel,
we hear the void call
And I too, when depressed, when pricked with unrest
crave a silent missus and kids. I’d kill for some kip
I suck another gut-punishing Coruba-swig
And think bail, think parole, think guilty pleas and degrees
of culpability. Jack smashes his antagonists
with a mallet and I wish my main man well.
He’s misunderstood, he’s insane and awake.
Just like me in the hour after three,
Asking only a quiet house, some privacy and a little sleep,
seeking role models in books and a bottles.