After Bukowski

 

You know,

that’s when I need it

When I’m in the rose garden

after a funeral

and they say ah, the Tequila Sunrise

and all I’m thinking of

is you leaning on the wood

behind the oak bar in the living room

hands slick with Grenadine

laughing over the twisted neck

of the Galliano bottle

making Wallbanger’s, sunrises, stingers, Negroni’s, ‘hoppers, spritzers,

getting juiced on pinky Mateus, Dubonnet, Campari

sending me out for ice, tongs a-jangling in the ice bucket

‘Pen, pop in parasols for the ladies’

plop in an olive, a maraschino cherry, a lemony twist

clinking glasses, reflecting the pastel tones of

evening dresses with rows of cloth covered buttons

the size and colour of chickpeas

while Uncle Ronnie plays darts badly

leaving pock marks in the wall

and falling off the bar stool

when you flick him with the wet bar towel.

 

In the Jack Daniels mirror,

their reflections are not kind;

as any poet knows but especially the Barfly himself

whose poetry I will not discover

for another ten years

when I get sent a copy as a half-arsed apology

after an embarrassing scene at the flicks

with you when you were still Dad and a few too many

Hartsman lagers in a plastic bag

and too many mouthfuls of dewy apricots

whose combined fermentation

explodes

and

is not contained

by your jeans

escaping looks in the darkness

as you exit the plush rows

to isolate in the loo cubicle

mopping pointlessly

while I watch the film

solo.

 

Charlie would get it;

that you can miss

that which you did not love -

the sound of family

arguments

and put-downs, slurred vitriol, scuffles

after which, drinking,

drinking, dancing

and smooching and eye-rolling looks

while I sit on our red velvet sofa

watching TV

in my knee-length patterned socks

with a book.

 

Drinks were lurid, exotic,

the colour of fun,

tantalising, desirable, lined up in rows,

reflecting dilute shades of vermilion,

sherbet lemon, neon blue,

like adult versions of the 

jam-jars for painting at school,

before the stained glasses became

familiar, painful, tasteless

evocative reminders of you

at every event after

and especially

after

you ask me to switch

you off

and after

you are gone

but the drinks are still here.

 

“Have a cocktail, Penny-love,

A fancy mixer?”

Just the thing.

 

Tequila Sunrise 

is an orangey red-stained garden rose

growing after someone else’s funeral

with trays of pyramid sandwiches

and twiglets and chitchat,

and pastel colours in the faded garden

and the best dresses

and the clinking glasses

and they are

no fun at all.

There's no fun in funeral -

despite the jokes in the car,

despite clasping hands,

and lips pressed to damp cheeks.

 

Our stab at history

is here upon us

now

and in the moment –

in the wine on the tongue

breath fogging the air

your words in my ear

his tongue (and more) in me

and I guess, in the end,

fucking

Bukowski

wouldn’t have it otherwise.

 

 

Reflections, after reading about Matjames Metson while in the garden at a wake https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51375721