L’Absinthe c’est la mort

Look here, so-called liquor . . .

Ordinaire’s elixir,

Never what you seem.

Madman’s mean Musée,

Outlawed & misused,

Wormwood’s worst extreme.

You poison-penned “Green Fairy,”

Liquid-swirled canary,

Degas-framed, in brown & cream.

Did your seductive aromatic,

Antediluvian romantic,

Vacate Andrée’s scene?

Tempting sugar through a spoon,

Translating wise men into loons,

Letting “loosh,” a wicked seed.

Hallucinogenic genie,

Escaping like Houdini,

Planting deep, bewitching weeds.

So Wilde-ly energetic,

Fearless, feckless & frenetic,

Wrecking dainty de-vo-tees.

Why snipped you Vincent’s ear,

Fed his paranoid-led fear?

Leaving him, so self-deceived.

& Lautec’s last “Lakiam!”

Lost in the asylum.

Another of your deeds?

You bitter, fenneled slacker,

Artful, measured, retro-actor,

Stop now, your wretched screeds!

Lest to “Green Hours,” we succumb,

Leaving “sodden & benumbed,”

All your lovers — and their dreams.

(c) 2015