Final chord settling
Into velvet-draped walls
Dancers safely back stage
False dawn at 2 a.m.
As lights undim
They say you don’t have to go home
But you can’t stay here
I sit in my cold car
Windows down
Exhaling scented clouds
Of fading intoxication
Clarity of Orion’s setting stars
In still winter air
Dissolves the dream
Dancers emerge as mere women
Girls much too young for me
Wine just rancid grapes
In this 21st century Eden
Succumbing to temptation
Is not to be expelled
But to remain within
I choose exile
After six months
Finally sober enough
To go home
With this poem, I close the 10th anniversary celebration of my first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular. Thank you for reading.
Bartholomew Barker, Poet 
Captivating.
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Thanks, K. F. I eventually escaped.
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Six months is a long time😁
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From the distance of 10 years, it seems like the wink of an eye, with heavy mascara.
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This morning I said to Mike “It’s Thursday – time for another of Bartholomew’s lascivious lays”.
Mike replied…”He wishes!”
He also suggested that you could write a one-line poem….. “Girls!” – a la Father Jack…
You could re-name the book – ‘The Lascivious Lays of Bartholomew B.’
I won’t even start on the use of the expression ‘mere women’ …..
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It just occurred to me…in America, do you use the word ‘lay’ when referring to a certain kind of song?…
https://www.britannica.com/art/lay
If not – my comment would only read as meaning ‘lay’ in the way that Mike was joking about.
They only danced, they didn’t…lay. Presumably.
You could work a poem round the two ways of using that word!
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I’ve never heard of that use of the word “lay”. I assumed you were referring to the more vulgar usage.
No more Wednesday Night Regular poems. Though might do this again in ten or fifteen years.
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Many years ago I wrote this…
‘Lying in the bed
Where he and I
Once layed
Thinking.’
While I’m here…here you are…
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16544
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Thank you for the publicity!
While I’m pretty loose with haiku, I do think it needs to be only three lines but you could easily combine your lines two and three and then you’d be fine. But who cares what I think? This is poetry!
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And…a good lay?
Sorry – couldn’t resist!
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Finding where you belong is always the longest journey.
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A never-ending one.
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That is a brilliant write, we are never as sober as when we’re hung over!🙏
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Sometimes the hangover is the only negative consequence of our drinking. Thanks!
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