HAIKU DIALOGUE – Intoxication – Alcohol – long list

Intoxication with Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt

It has been with us since time immemorial, and almost all of us have experienced it firsthand: intoxication. Endorphins produced in the body during exercise give us a feeling of happiness known as a “runner’s high,” and once again we are intoxicated. Intoxicants have been used to awaken our spirituality, make us forget physical hardships, or elevate our imagination to unprecedented heights. And yet intoxication has its dark side. In the coming weeks, we want to explore how legal intoxicants affect us, our brains, and our everyday lives. I invite you to join me on a journey into our everyday lives and our brains to explore intoxication.

Below is Deborah’s selection of poems on the topic of Alcohol:

harvest moon …
a bowl of rice wine
sipped in the hut

John Zheng
Mississippi

 

’70s disco
with extra sparkle –
Babycham

Caroline Ridley-Duff
UK

 

weekend bash
a genie
let loose

Jagajit Salam
Imphal, India

 

last call—
a double shot
of loneliness

Terri French
Alabama

 

chanting circle
tinges of tea
in the rapture

Kanjini Devi
The Far North, Aotearoa NZ

 

samudra manthan
how the inebriated asuras
held the snake’s head

Vidya Shankar
Chennai, India

 

a bottle of wine
for the bookmobile ladies
long overdue

Randy Brooks
United States

 

“Just one beer tonight”
said the biggest liar here
ordering a cask

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania, Italy

 

butterfly kiss
a shot of vodka added
to the milkweed mix

John S Green
Bellingham, Washington

 

emergency room
in blood-stained trousers
a vodka bottle

Artur Zieliński
Poland

 

a little smile
she dabs more whisky
on his lips

Tony Williams
Scotland, UK

 

morning after
a hair of the dog
that bit me

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

fermenting cherries
disappear into nowhere
from Grandma’s juice

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

the wine kicks in
blue and white pixels
a gap in the clouds

Mark Gilbert
UK

 

two glasses
all our past in the tender silence
of my solitude

Tsanka Shishkova
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

ghosts of christmas past
wine bottles left
on the shelf

Melissa Dennison
UK

 

mellowing
on the pilgrim’s path
somras

Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India

 

Laphroaig—
the grasses of dreams
of home

Jonathan English
United States

 

she sculls a yard glass
on her twenty first birthday –
stomps and cheers

Anne Curran
Hamilton, New Zealand

 

carol singers
drunk and merry
one is out of tune

Nikola Đuretić
Zagreb, Croatia

 

stone cold sober —
how boring the other guests
at the party

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

designated driver
my birthday gift
to her

Susan Farner
USA

 

i cover my nose —
the rotten
eyes hurts

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

Sundays at dawn
hosing down the vinyl seats
of my taxicab

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

just one glass
I become what I hate
green tea calm

Alfred Booth
Lyon, France

 

hard day hoping it’s hard cider

Laurinda Lind
Sackets Harbor, NY, USA

 

gulping
cheap grape wine . . .
purple haze

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

full moon
the bartenders
reality

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

hot night –
in the glass of vodka
the moon trembles

Dan C. Julian
Romania

 

drowning
everything
mezcal

Sangita Kalarickal
USA

 

her glass refilled
without a word
rattle of ice cubes

Siggi Saradunn
Bar Harbor, Maine

 

suddenly lethargic
both feet akimbo
in a cocktail swirl

Joanna Ashwell
UK

 

friendship till death
the first and last
cucumber fizz

Zoltan Pachnik
Hungary

 

jukebox
silence pouring down
our throats

C.R. Harper
United States

 

after receiving
the bread…
a heavenly wine

Madeleine Kavanagh
California

 

empty wine barrel
the scent—
intoxicating

Patricia Haddock
United States

 

camouflage
the floral bag
that holds a pint

Pat Davis
Concord, NH USA

 

not quite enough
that one sip
at Sunday service

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

rhododendron wine
under the stars
a river sings

Geetha Ravichandran
Chennai, India

 

his whiskey glass—
how faithfully
it reflects the night

Sandip Chauhan
Great Falls, Virginia, USA

 

scotch on the rocks all those spent summers

Robert Kingston
Chelmsford, United Kingdom

 

cloudburst —
her voice deepens with
each vodka shot

Martina Matijević
Vidovci, Croatia

 

fourth beer,
finally she gets him
on the dancefloor

Christopher Seep
USA

 

confidences
the melting ice cube
clouds the ouzo

Marie Derley
Ath, Belgium

 

the lemon and the salt
changes nothing
open tennis match

Morgan Ophir
Sydney, Australia

 

cowering –
volatile late night return
of a binge drinker

Paul Callus
Ħal Safi, Malta

 

out trampled secrets under wine

Biswajit Mishra
Canada

 

summer night —
swapping cocktail
for a mocktail

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
Chennai, India

 

dutch courage
i reveal secrets between
tequila shots

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

the sparkle
of champagne flutes
first anniversary

Ruth Holzer
Potomac Falls, VA

 

champagne
her credit rising
with the bubbles

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

peer pressure…
I match her
beer for beer

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

diphthongs
deepening
a wee dram

Tim Chamberlain
Tokyo, Japan

 

matured wine
my friends await me
in the beyond

Ivan Georgiev
Germany

 

today the drink I am tomorrow fading a downed sunset

petro c. k.
Seattle, Washington

 

summer night
the joys of beer bringing
wings to my soul

Swarna Bopali de Zoysa
Sri Lanka

 

moon-drunk sky
Issa’s ghost invites me
for just one cup

AJ Johnson
Stephens City, VA USA

 

second drink –
the poems I’ve read
surface

Sanjana Zorinc
Croatia

 

third glass of wine
she teeters on the edge
of the truth

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

one too many
my cocktail umbrellas
mary popping

Millicent Bee
Richmond, VA USA

 

out of focus …
on the way from the party
two moons above

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

waves crashing
on the rocks—
tequila sunrise

Kerry J Heckman
Seattle, WA

 

three days
become five
black-out binge

Lee Hudspeth
United States

 

lap of
the gods
hazy moon

Helen Buckingham
United Kingdom

 

misty field—
two moons
in a tilted pond

Sathya Venkatesh
Coimbatore, India

 

wild moon
professors dancing
to the beats
of whiskey

Amoolya Kamalnath
India

 

caribbean rum
the oolalah
of his twisting torso

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

water to wine
Jesus
what a party

Rachel Greve
United States

 

juniper berry spirits dancing at our wedding

Adele Gallogly
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

 

holiday cheer—
cedar waxwings
tipsy on berries

Sam Bateman
Everett, Washington

 

wild rain
upending his glass
on the bar

Lorraine Haig
Australia

 

stroking his beer belly
the doctor advises —
quit alcohol

Padma Rajeswari
Hyderabad, India

 

the drunkard’s wife prays:
lord, turn the wine
back into water

de dronkaard’s vrouw bidt:
heer, verander de wijn
weer in water

Guido De Pelsmaeker
België

 

rows
of empty bottles
stale stories

Kavita Ratna
India

 

end of term—
she orders her apple juice
on the rocks

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

I don’t know
since when did a fly
swim in a glass

Refika Dedić
Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

the whites of her eyes ·· dipsomaniacal elephant pink

simonj
UK

 

social media –
toasting faraway friends
with a virtual glass

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

girls’ night in
glass of wine
and free therapy

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

happy hour
the gang back together
in AA

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

who knew
what the devil drink could do?
1788

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

for years I thought
I knew the taste of wine––
Manischewitz

Sheila Sondik
Bellingham, Washington

 

Memorial Day ribs
the kids still tease me about
the margarita dance

Bruce Feingold
Berkeley, CA, USA

 

night drinking
her perfume scent
and the barbecue

Anthony Q. Rabang
Philippines

 

shared bottle
the shrinking space
between us

Nitu Yumnam
UAE

 

whiskey breath
she tongues peat scents
from my lips

John Hawkhead
UK

 

red clouds at sunset —
a touch of autumn
in my glass of white

Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India

 

a stranger among besties the new teetotaller

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

roommates lair…
the beer can pyramid
ceiling high

Marilyn Humbert
Sydney, Australia

 

sorting beermats
by brewery name
rain on the window

C.X. Turner
U.K.

 

hunter’s moon—
he pops a cherry
into her drink

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

intoxication
the kiss of wine
from your lips

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
India

 

chasing woes
the hard day ends
in vertigo

Pamela Garry
Connecticut, USA

 

AA
taking turns
tending the old coffeepot

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

vintage year . . .
toasty teetotaler
walking the vineyard

Monica Kakkar
India

 

heartbeats in the starry silence my stupor

Lakshman Bulusu
Princeton, NJ, USA

 

elated
on a noir bender
his bottled poetry

Rita R. Melissano
Rock Island, IL USA

 

one-night drink binging
no memory
of my loosened tongue

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

vicious circle
at the bottom of the glass
of the abyss

Mirela Brailean
Iasi, Romania

 

Twelve on the clock.
I catch the chill of the night
with a glass of whiskey.

Herwig Stas
Meldert – Belgium

 

morning after —
the careful folding
of a paper crown

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai

 

grape must in barrels
the last flocks of birds
fly south

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

Join us next week for Deborah’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios

Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt lives in Sinzig, Germany, with her husband, two rabbits and numerous books. After her PhD studies in Scandinavian languages and literatures, she works as a freelance author and poet. Her poems have appeared in magazines like Prune Juice, Kingfisher, First Frost, Frogpond, Failed Haiku and Tsuridoro. If she is not outside for a long stroll or to do some birdwatching, she explores Chinese and Japanese novels.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.  Read past Haiku Dialogue posts here.