A toast to those since departed.
“I think more that I want to think,
do things I never should do.
I drink much more than I ought to drink,
because it brings me back to you.”
Red wine coats all my thoughts with a fuzzy sense of inflated nostalgia.
From the time the glass touches softly upon my lips
till swallowing passes the inebriating fluid on to the automaton of digestion,
the mind is temporarily preoccupied with voluntary processes
that spare it from melancholia, albeit only briefly.
Even though my diminishing sense of equilibrium
is sufficient reason to curtail the nights intake,
the wine is partly responsible for the words I express
and is therefore justified as serving a purpose.
Loneliness always feels like
the worse you have ever felt it,
more so in company
when an ocean of need
turns unfamiliarity into impregnated desperation.
“So I wait for you, and I burn,
will I ever see your sweet return?
Oh, will I ever learn?”
Red wine and the emotion it brought forth from the forever-pained (and drinking) Jeff Buckley,
are the only things currently standing
between me and total despair.
Some past lovers return from the depths of memory,
showing me just how soothing the passage of time can be.
Losing you seems to have slowed time down to an absurdity though.
Seeing the beauty loneliness and heartache forged into every word of 'Last goodbye’.
I realise every feeling
from unbearable sorrow to unfathomable bliss
can inspire astounding creativity in anyone.
Wine is only the catalyst,
yet a good one at that.
“You gave me more than you thought,
more than you’ll ever know.
This is our last embrace,
must I dream and always see your face?”
Sulphur preservatives insidiously overwhelm my immunity
and alcohol quickly drowns out the protests of my liver
as its toxic by-products flood my brain.
I voluntarily put my body under siege,
which paradoxically,
is the only respite my broken heart gets
from the echoes of the empty space you once occupied.
Each mouthful is a slow, staggering step
towards an oblivion devoid of all awareness of pain,
but like all things compounded,
their failing and their appeal lie in being impermanent.
Through the enlightening clarity that drunkeness can often reveal,
(by deleting that which is superfluous to existence)
I become momentarily aware
that my current condition obeys the same laws.
That which I now grieve for,
once made me the happiest person alive.
While I sit with sorrow,
my joy rests peacefully.
I smile broadly,
as the gifts from friends and lovers now gone,
give me solace and relief
in a way that red wine could only vaguely emulate.
“It’s never over,
my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.
It’s never over,
all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter.
It’s never over,
see the tear that hangs inside my soul forever.
Maybe I’m just too young
to keep good love from going wrong.”
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Lilac wine
Lover, you should have come over
Last goodbye
Lover, you should have come over
(2003)
With apologies to Jeff Buckley
