Ardent Spirits

The effects of ardent spirits upon the human body and mind:

Obstruction of the liver,

Jaundice and dropsy of every cavity in the body,

Diabetes,

 

Voices, music.

Now the empty street

footsteps

and an empty bottle.

 

Falsehood, 

fraud, 

theft, 

and murder,

 

An overpass.

The tangled veins

of the city below.

A car or two.

 

dependency

sprawl

sustainable communities

justice

 

sub specie aeternitatis.

 

Frequent and disgusting belchings,

A foetid breath of putrid animal matter,

A fatal disease of the lungs,

Madness,

 

Ugly.

This is something-grad,

or some unpronounceable place

with mandarin characters.

 

The bottle is thrown

over the high fence

into the darkness.

Footsteps hasten.

 

It strikes the lonely form

that is the black.

Its vapours disperse into the ether,

the anima.

 

And everything gets a little bit worse.

Thus we see poverty and misery, crimes and infamy, diseases and death, are all the natural and usual consequences of ardent spirits.