“Thank God the Tiki Bar is open…”

                               -Randy Newman

Paul, tending bar at dVerse tonight, asks us for poetry about drinking–full creative liscense given. But I am a simple man, with simple needs. And at least one of my codes is “Coffee in the AM, Wine in the PM!” What follows is a found poem of haibun excerpts from previous work

Bear Mountain Oktoberfest 2013

Light rain keeps few away from Bear Mountain’s Oktoberfest ’13. The lines for Wurst and the usual stretch out past the length of the cook houses. Visitors fill every picnic table from the cash registers to under the horseshoe shelter cradling the stage and dance floor. So many steins in so many hands. We luck out: college kids playing drinking games have room at the end of their table.

The band plays a diverse range music, from German Polkas to the Ramones. The dance floor never empties.

fall foliage
savoring the first sip of
dark German beer

first published in Image Curve, December 8, 2016 as part of the haibun “An Autumnal Trilogy”

Wine Tasting at Boyden Valley Vineyard

The Red River-Bend has a smooth and strong flavor. The others manage to be sweet and tart at the same time. A few sips, and Mira is almost tipsy.

Outside, we lounge on plastic Adirondack chairs on the lawn in front of “The Barn.” Mount Mansfield rises like a camel hump from the Boyden Valley floor.

growing down
a gentle green hill
new vineyard

first published in Image Curve, September 3, 2015, as part of the haibun “Smuggler’s Notch 2012, Part II”

New Year’s Dinner

Gathered at the end of the table: Platters of feijoada (pig’s feet with chick peas), trays of rice, glasses topped with red wine so deep and strong it could pass for whiskey.

Mira puts down a plate of Carne Alentejana (Pork Cubes with Clams and fried potatoes). My favorite.

The men talk on, oblivious, as I eat and drink in silence.

warm winter day—
where have all the kids gone this
New Years afternoon?

first published in Image Curve, January 1, 2015

for dVerse Poets’ Poetics