by Martin Anton Smith

He has a fat beer barrelled belly,

While your waist has only a few rings of crisp ‘n’ soda -flab.

He has a stench that attests to his 3 day & counting bender,

While you smell like a fresh daisy plucked from a mountain stream.

His voice is raspy & harsh from drunken whoops & hollers at the dive bar,

While your sclerotic office voice sounds like a hungry cat whining for its morning feeding.

The drunkard’s villa is an ode to haphazard-ry, with loosely connected pyramids of beer cans,

While your apartment looks like it’s been ‘staged’ by the real estate wonks.

I could go on & on, but let’s just cut to the summary:

In a weird kinda way you are jealous of this beer belly joe,

For he wears his woes out loud,

While you have concocted an elaborate cover story.

Come on!

Just plain admit it.

He’s the Alcoholic you always wanted to be,

But you were afraid,

For fear of what people might think.

One day you’ll have the courage to raise a glass to beer belied Joe,

Crumple the empty can in your hand,

it & throw it backwards over your head,

Till you hear it recoil & fall after hitting the overfilled bin & its aluminium foothills,

Then reach for another beer.

But you’re not ready yet.

You might never be ready to reach such illustrious, truth infused heights,

Of that generalised, fictionalised, traditionalised & ‘cantankerised’ patriot,

Who isn’t necessarily a man,

Whom I’ve simply called ‘Beer Belied Joe’.

And so because you’re not ready yet,

You reach meekly into your bathroom cupboard,

And quietly pop an anti-depressant.

But if & only if,

A day comes where you can throw the empty stress pill wrapper over your head,

And not care a jot where it lands,

Then we can talk.

And lastly – to the poetry critics in the future,

Yes I may simply have been talking to myself,

A conversation across decades,

Between my younger & older self.

For can a poet ever really exclude himself from his words?