Okay, this title is a bit melodramatic–
sacreligious, even, if you believe God
and his progeny are fragile as icicles
stoned down from the eves and sucked
like popsicles, flavorless but sweet and
clean as a mountain spring.
But truly, Li Po’s drunkenness was borne of
dedication. Sober, life was grim. Hammered,
mud turned to gold and fools fell away and
he only had ears for fellow poets.
Drunk, he looked at his friends and saw brothers.
As for the singing girls, their lash-veiled eyes and
lantern-lit cheeks were better than virtue.
Talk waxed and waned. Ladies were wooed
and then forgotten. Stars glittered with the
special sheen imparted by “rice wine goggles.”
And Li Po, passing the night on boats, at inns
and in pavilions built to capture poetry like
wooden nets, fell asleep among compatriots.
He woke, no doubt, to hangovers–the kind
that turn the sun into a hammer and a whisper
into a vibrating gong. Amiable man, he accepted
them as the price for genius and thrilling nights.
He never deigned to lodge his complaints in haiku form.
–Sarah Torribio
Read more poems by Sarah Torribio HERE
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