The Brown Bottle...to Dwight (Del )Long.
Dusting the brown bottle
After all these years
Brought me to think of you
Wearing a black beret
And that long grey coat,
A man dressed up as poet
In the summer heat.
Your habit was to lurch
Between bravado and self pity
Stepping out
In search of small adegas...and another drink.
Gone for hour on hour ...day on day.
Eating out ... before desert...
You slipped into the night for cigarettes
And never did return.
Alone I sat...
Glaring at your empty chair
Feeling quite a fool.
Got lost....you said..
Lost in another drink... I snarled.
But then. you’d tinkle on the old joanna
Singing soft and kindly blues
Swaying like an oak tree in a southern breeze
And I would fall in love again...
.....Until the next wild ramble
But when you did return...a shambles..
Bearing that saloon bar tan of puce
You always brought a gift of truce
An objet trouve from your jaunts .
A pair of ancient scissors locked by rust
A broken terra cotta pot
Stones from a long forgotten walk
A bent old silver fork...
.... the dark brown bottle
With it’s ancient cork.
Dusting this romance long gone
I think of you...
Like some old song...again.
Kristine Byrne Sept 2013