And with that title I suppose we need no further explanation. The Poetry Foundation has a full page up to celebrate today’s date. Whatever persuasion you are, and whether or not you feel there is anything to celebrate, I suspect that you would not turn down a drink and some hearty food on your plate. Not blood sausage maybe, but bangers and mash perhaps? Or some Guinness stew, or cheesy champ with onions? Or how about the plate of food from title poem from PF’s feature page: “Corned Beef and Cabbage?” For me, I think I like the idea of “Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey.”
Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey
(Click here for Poetry Foundation’s Audio)
Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren’t we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick, and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don’t say a word,
don’t tell a soul, they wouldn’t
understand, they couldn’t, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.
All of this is making me hungry, and it is getting close to dinner time even here on the western side of the “pond,” so I leave you with W. B. Yeats and my recording of “A Drinking Song.” Check out Poetry Ireland if you need your clovers tickled just a bit more today. And happy St. Paddy’s to ye!
A Drinking Song
by William Butler Yeats
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
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