My poem “Martini” was inspired in part by The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic

by the perfectly named  Barnaby Conrad III (also inspired in part by martinis). It first appeared in the estimable Boston literary magazine Poetry Northeast. A year later, it was selected to appear in Modern Drunkard (it’s in the current issue, on newsstands now!). Enjoy!

1.

The ice is drenched in the silver cylinder
With Bluecoat, vermouth, juice of pickled peppers.

The splash tingles the cubes. They crack and fuse.
I rest it to chill, shake, then shower loose

A tidy rain to fill the glass chalice.
It glows on my lips like afternoon air.
 

2.

Solemn ceremony of president,
Executive, and, after all, the poet,

A clear, terrible fuel, rite of the WASP,
American legend, birthright, bequest:

Supreme distraction, long ago, for a time
Of polio, smallpox, economic decline;

Then back for the Cold War, to melt away
The edge on the Age of Anxiety

When the Atom Bomb made sobriety’s
Appeals pale beside a cold stem of Gilbey’s.

3.

We scarcely stop to think, night and day,
Yet still the true, indisputable way

To rinse cerebral soot is to simply say
“Dry, please, and a little dirty.” It’s okay

To soak there in the rich, swabbed ambience
After a day of cubicle fluorescence

And go a bit numb at nerve ends, a sense
Of drowning in place, serenely. So dispense

Wisdom and foolishness with a lemon twist
That shines like a hot coil above the wrist;

Or royal rust of a salt-defused mine,
The olive remote in its foggy brine.