Best Poems - Drinking

“In my young days I drank a 
Lot of wine. There is nothing
Wrong with the love of drink. Now
I am old and my teeth and
Hairs are few and far between.
I still love to drink, but I 
Can’t do it as I used to.
Now when I drink it upsets
My stomach.  There is not much
Pleasure in it. Today I 
Got drunk and could not hold up
My head. The room turned round and round.
Seeking pleasure, I find only
Sickness. This is certainly
Not the way to care for my health.
Maybe I should give it up
Altogether. I am afraid
People will laugh at me. Still,
You say it would be a good 
Idea. There is not much pleasure
In a sour stomach and 
Bad breath. I really know that I
Ought to stop it. If I don’t do it,
I don’t know what will happen to me.”

Inebriate of air am I—
And debauchee of dew— 
Reeling, through endless summer days— 
From inns of molten blue—

When ‘Landlords’ turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door— 
When butterflies—renounce their drams— 
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats—
And saints to windows run—
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the Sun!”

"I stopped drinking on my way down the hill
to the liquor store when two guys pulled up
and tried to drag me into their pickup. I crossed the street
then ran in the opposite direction, puffing
against the incline. The stranger thrust into reverse 
and, when I wouldn't talk to him,
threw a bag of McDonald’s trash at me,
Stuck up bitch. I stopped drinking
when I realized I was fighting 
for the vodka at the bottom of the hill
more than I was fighting against the terrible
things that could have happened to me
inside the cab of that rusty Chevy. I stopped drinking
before cell phones. I stopped drinking
after Days of Wine and Roses. I stopped drinking
even as I kept walking to El Prado Spirits
and the guy behind the counter who recognized me
asked if I was alright. I didn't tell him
what had happened because he might have called
the police and then I would have had to wait
for them to arrive to fill out a report, delaying my Smirnoff.  
I stopped drinking even before I had that last sip,
as I ran back up the hill squeezing a bottle by its neck."

Have Some Madeira, M'Dear - Flanders and Swann (lyrics)

"She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen
He was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice
He was base, he was bad, he was mean
He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat
To view his collection of stamps
And he said as he hastened to put out the cat
The wine, his cigar and the lamps

Have some madeira, m'dear
You really have nothing to fear
I'm not trying to tempt you, that wouldn't be right
You shouldn't drink spirits at this time of night
Have some madeira, m'dear
It's really much nicer than beer
I don't care for sherry, one cannot drink stout
And port is a wine I can well do without
It's simply a case of chacun a son gout
Have some madeira, m'dear

Unaware of the wiles of the snake-in-the-grass
And the fate of the maiden who topes
She lowered her standards by raising her glass
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes
She sipped it, she drank it, she drained it, she did
He promptly refilled it again
And he said as he secretly carved one more notch
On the butt of his gold-headed cane

Have some madeira, m'dear, I've got a small cask of it here
And once it's been opened, you know it won't keep
Do finish it up, it will help you to sleep
Have some madeira, m'dear, it's really an excellent year
Now if it were gin, you'd be wrong to say yes
The evil gin does would be hard to assess
Besides it's inclined to affect me prowess
Have some madeira, m'dear

Then there flashed through her mind what her mother had said
With her antepenultimate breath
"Oh my child, should you look on the wine that is red
Be prepared for a fate worse than death"
She let go her glass with a shrill little cry
Crash! tinkle! it fell to the floor
When he asked, "What in Heaven?" she made no reply
Up her mind, and a dash for the door

Have some madeira, m'dear, rang out down the hall loud and clear
A tremulous cry that was filled with despair
As she paused to take breath in the cool midnight air
Have some madeira, m'dear, the words seemed to ring in her ear
Until the next morning, she woke up in bed
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head
And a beard in her ear 'ole that tickled and said
Have some madeira, m'dear"

“It it wasn’t for you, Mr. Marijuana, noblest of intoxicants, we’d all
    be lying in a drunken bloodynose stupor in a gutter
we’d be exploding into cancer under the archway of the Triboro
        Bridge, our right forefingers stained with cunt and nicotine
never would’ve heard great waves of eternity flowing through the
basses of Bach”  

Allen Ginsberg: Journals Mid-Fifties 1954-1958

One day, Mom decided
prayer was not enough.
She confronted—
let’s call her Sadie—
to lodge a complaint
about her boys shooting heroin
right where we could see.
A fight broke out between them,

and Sadie cracked Mom in the head
with an iron.
Blood gushed everywhere,
to the tune of me screaming.
But it was all delirium, wasn’t it?
Some bad dream born of
indigestion?  That had to be it.
I was certain right up until
the night, years later,
when Mom took my index finger
and placed it on her scar.
‘The next day,’ she said,
‘we moved away.'”

Where is the use of effort? Love and debt
And disappointment have us in a net.
Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .
Let us be drunk.

In vain our little hour we strut and fret,
And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:
We cannot please the tragicaster Time.
To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,
Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,
Let us be drunk!”

“O I today
sad as Chu Yuan
stumbled to the store
in broiling Florida October
morning heat cursing
for my wine, sweating
like rain, & came to my chair
weak & trembling
wondering if I’m crazy at last
—O Chu Yuan! No!

No suicide! Wine please wine!
What shall we all do
all knowing we’re dying
without wine to guide us
to winking at death
& life too—
My heart belongs
to Chinese poets
& their scrolls—
We cant just die
—Men need wine
& poetry
at least

O Mao, poet Mao,
not Boss Mao,
here in America
wine is laughed at
& poetry a joke
—Death’s a grim reminder
To everybody already dead
crashing in cars all around here—
Here men & women dryly scowl
at poets’ sad attempts
to make our lot
a whole lot
lesser—
I, a poet, suffer
even for bugs
I find upsidedown
dying in the grass—
So I drink wine
alone—
I shudder to think
how dead
the astronauts
are
going to a dead
moon
of no wine

All our best men
are laughed at
in this nightmare land
but the newspapers preen
in virtue—Throughout
the world the left & right,
the east & west, are both vicious—
The happy old winebibber is gone—
I want him to reappear—
For Modern China preens
in virtue too
for no better reason
than America—
Nobody has respect for the cat
asleep, and I am hopelessly
inadequate in this poem
—Nobody has respect
for the self centered
irresponsible wine invalid
—Everybody wants to be strapped
in a hopeless space suit
where they cant move
—I urge you, China,
go back
to Li Po &
Tao Yuan Ming

What am I talking about?
I dont know
I’m sick today—
I didn’t sleep all night
Walked stumbling in the field
to get wine, now I’m drinking it,
I feel better and worse—
I have something to say to Mao
& the poets of China
that wont come out—
It’s all about how America
ignores poetry & wine,
& so does China,
& I’m a fool
without a river & a boat
& a flower suit—
without a wineshop at dawn
—without self respect—
—without the truth—
But I’m a better man
than all of you—
that’s what I
wanted to say”

“I coulda done a lot worse than sit
in Skid Row drinkin wineTo know that nothing matters after all
To know there’s no real difference
between the rich and the poor
To know that eternity is neither drunk
nor sober, to know it young
and be a poet

Coulda gone into business and ranted
And believed that God was concerned

Instead I squatted in lonesome alleys
And nobody saw me, just my bottle
and what they saw of it was empty 

And I did it in the cornfields & graveyards

To know that the dead dont make noise
To know that the cornstalks talk (among
one another with raspy old arms)

Sittin in alleys diggin the neons
And watching cathedral custodians
Wring out their rags neath the church steps 

Sittin and drinkin wine
And in railyards being divine

To be a millionaire & yet to prefer
Curlin up with a poorboy of tokay
In a warehouse door, facing long sunsets
On railroad fields of grass

To know that the sleepers in the river
are dreaming vain dreams, to squat
in the night and know it well

To be dark solitary eye-nerve watcher
of the world’s whirling diamond”

“The man is killing time—there’s nothing else.
No help now from the fifth of Bourbon
chucked helter-skelter into the river,
even its cork sucked under.Stubbed before-breakfast cigarettes
burn bull’s-eyes on the bedside table;
a plastic tumbler of alka seltzer
champagnes in the bathroom.

No help from his body, the whale’s
warm-hearted blubber, foundering down
leagues of ocean, gasping whiteness.
The barbed hooks fester. The lines snap tight.

When he looks for neighbors, their names blur in the window,
his distracted eye sees only glass sky.
His despair has the galvanized color
of the mop and water in the galvanized bucket.

Once she was close to him
as water to the dead metal.

He looks at her engagements inked on her calendar.
A list of indictments.
At the numbers in her thumbed black telephone book.
A quiver full of arrows.

Her absence hisses likes steam,
the pipes sing . . .
even corroded metal somehow functions.
He snores in his iron lung,

and hears the voice of Eve,
beseeching freedom from the Garden’s
perfect and ponderous bubble. No voice
outsings the serpent’s flawed, euphoric hiss.

The cheese wilts in the rat-trap,
the milk turns to junket in the cornflakes bowl,
car keys and razor blades
shine in an ashtray.

Is he killing time? Out on the street
two cops on horseback clop through the April rain
to check the parking meter violations—
their oilskins yellow as forsythia.” 

“There is something about a Martini
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish that I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth–
I think that perhaps it’s the gin.

There is something about an old-fashioned
That kindles a cardiac glow;
It is soothing and soft and impassioned
As a lyric by Swinburne or Poe.
There is something about an old-fashioned
When dusk has enveloped the sky,
And it may the ice,
Or the pineapple slice,
But I strongly suspect it’s the rye.

There is something about a mint julep.
It is nectar imbibed in a dream,
As fresh as the bud of the tulip,
As cool as the bed of the stream.
There is something about a mint julep,
A fragrance beloved by the lucky.
And perhaps it’s the tint
Of the frost and the mint,
But I think it was born in Kentucky.

There is something they put in a highball
That awakens the torpidest brain,
That kindles a spark in the eyeball,
Gliding singing through vein after vein.
There is something they put in a highball
Which you’ll notice one day, if you watch;
And it may be the soda,
But judged by the odor,
I rather believe it’s the Scotch

Then here’s to the heartening wassail,
Wherever good fellows are found;
Be its master instead of its vassal,
And order the glasses around.
For there’s something they put in the wassail
That prevents it from tasting like wicker;
Since it’s not tapioca,
Or mustard, or mocha,
I’m forced to conclude it’s the liquor.”