Do This: Potable Poetry

The eighth annual “Spirits in the Air: Potent Potables Poetry” reading is happening on April 26, 6-7 p.m., at The Good Lion, a cocktail bar at 1212 State Street. The event is free, but the drinks aren’t, so pony up to hear the alcohol-inspired words of Mary Brown, Susan Chiavelli, Michelle Detorie, Rebecca Horrigan, Linda Saccoccio, Jace Turner, and Chryss Yost, who was Santa Barbara’s fifth Poet Laureate. 

I will be hosting the event and also reading my own work, including the following poem. 

Day Drinking

My biggest battle of the day is to decide

not to join a dear friend for lunch and sip

a rare beer brewed at 10% alcohol and sure

to make the remains of the day dreamy.

But still there is the rest of the world.

Even on mute and pocketed my phone

screams headlines at me — pasty-faced

racists here, psycho imperialists there.

And somehow already ten years since

a black teen was killed for cradling Skittles

in a white neighborhood, and the law, at least

what’s law in Florida, let the murderer walk.

It’s enough to drive anyone to drink.

So I do, but just a mild Pils, a hum of

a buzz, like fog tendrils wisping to land

from the sea, obscuring even privilege.

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