Drunken Spirits

Nik Boyd


Come sit next to me
here by our favored jug.
Let me pour your cup and then another,
and then another unending.
Sip or toss each cup down
and while you drink, I'll breathe the vapors
until we're both drunk on spirits seen and unseen.

You favor the fluid while I favor the fumes,
but we imbide both, both streaming and steaming
and filling us both to bursting and broken minded,
littered in pieces like Humpty Dumpty,
no longer formable, no longer formidable,
only flattened on the floor and rolling about inebriated,
spirit possessed, grogged and frogged,
goggling and googled, so vastly numbered
and primed for God, and finally and finely touched
with tender and torporous caresses,
lit by some internal glow and spreading warmth,
lighting and lightening and lightning shocks
shaking our souls deeply down
inside our deepest and most basic connection.

Back again to the jug we go,
diving in deeply so, with slow sips
and quick lips and parched throats,
and arched notes sung sweetly
and hung upon our ears like rings,
or hoops with loops that dizzy
and curl our heads until we swoon
and must lay down in our beds.
Though still joined at heads and hearts and loins
oddly angled arms akimbo,
double-backed and multi-armed,
hungry mouthed and ever thirsty throated,
what strange beast is this human form,
so well connected, so inevitable,
so utterly spirited and coincidental.