The Wrong Saint

We were at St, Francis Winery

& were trying to find

our way home

when you said,

Hey! Isn’t St. Francis the Patron Saint of Travellers

& I said, yes,

I think he is

so we got praying to St. Francis

but were getting

more and more lost.

Hey! let me check something, I said

so I pulled out my iPhone & Googled

‘Patron Saint of Travellers’

& found

it was St. Christopher.

No wonder we were lost.

We were praying to the wrong guy.

So this time we prayed to the right guy

& cheered up.

The car cheered up too.

It had a bounce in its wheels.

We were on our way.

Any minute now …..

Three Nights

Three nights of frazzled sleep

crammed into four hours on the couch

mellowed by malbec, merlot, mataro

an afternoon of tasting platters & wine samplings

at Penny’s Hill where black-faced sheep slumbered

under the oak; now you slumber so gently:

sweet Lethe has taken your troubles over the border;

you will awaken and forget

Ode Not to a Nightingale

O

the voluptuous girth

of you

yr full mouth

yr

tiny tiny waist

I love

to twirl

between forefinger and thumb

yr long tapering body

rich aromas

the blush

of yr beauty

the swill

of yr full-bodied flavours

down

my

gullet

The Problem of Pachelbel

I don’t know what Pachelbel would make of it but

When I’m put on hold for a wine club query,

His canon plays. Actually I’m a member of a number

Of wine clubs which may say more about me

Than Pachelbel whose canon plays as on-hold music

For each of them.

 

I would have thought Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’

would have been more appropriate, if less soothing,

or Roger Miller’s Chug-A-Lug or, for a bit of class,

Mario Lanza’s Drink, Drink, Drink but Pachelbel it is.

 

I don’t know If Pachelbel was fond of a glass

or two in the evenings

Or when he was composing his hypnotic canon.

He may have been a member of a wine club himself

In which case —excuse the pun — he would be tickled

Pink, especially if a Rose man.

 

when you are put on hold, are you annoyed or pleased by the music that is played? 

have you ever discovered a song though being put on hold?

Not Everything Survived

 

 

Not everything survived.

Got off scot-free.

The wine had turned to vinegar

The whole half dozen.

Bottle by painful bottle I poured

down the sink,

while through the side window

the sun gloated.

The Stain

The wine had been sitting in the glass

for three hot days

when I poured it

down

the

sink

& saw the stain

it left

on the side:

a sigil

a rune-like mark

Of some sort,

representing

Angel or demon,

Benediction

Or curse?

The drinker’s version of ‘the writing

on the wall’?

A message from another world?

I look at it long

Unsettled.

Perplexed.

 

what does it look like to you?