issue 24 > light verse > johnson

Credit where due, I owe the most to booze.
To life's highballs, on rocks, a toast: To booze!

Need proof I'm wasted? Friends abandon me
(O whiskey sour!); you're not supposed to, booze.

Parry and thrust; if not so effing drunk,
I'd no doubt make some sharp riposte to booze.

My dog-eared Hemingway in tow, I hit
Hog's Breath, Key West (coast southernmost), to booze.

Liquor? I hardly know her! Closing time
has long since passed. I win, I boast, to booze.

Here's my confession, penitent to priest:
that I feel close to God when close to booze.

Hey soldier, tanked and bombed, where's your white flag?
Are you surrendering your post to booze?

At the meeting, My name's Elizabeth,
I rasp, sea-tossed, but not yet lost to booze.