UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/PAUL HELLWEG


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

PAUL HELLWEG

Confessions of an Amateur Drunk

All my synapses fire better
with a Scotch
and a brew,
my neurons
and hormones,
enzymes
and platelets,
all enjoy a good buzz,
as do I,
but the next morning,
the next day,
hungover,
I don't want to pay,
I want it free,
I want everything free
                 love
                 sex
                 art
                 poetry
                 a good buzz
and I've never understood
why there's always a price tag
attached to living.

As if
dying were not enough.

We've Just Talked
(for Kumari)

We've just talked,
not dated once,
and already I struggle
The Struggle,
the one that haunts my life,
to be myself
                 for me
or to be not myself
                 for you,
as it is,
I fear rejection
because
I'm
an alcoholic whore monger;
albeit an amateur alcoholic,
and a whore monger
who knows not one,
too timid to indulge,
yet lonely,
and dreaming as always
of love's first bite
and the redemptive power
of copulation,
and as much as I want both,
I remember Marquez
and his admonition
that sex
is the consolation you have
when you can't have love,
to which I must add
that whiskey
is the consolation you have
when
you don't have either.