For our anniversary this year (17), Kellie and I took a quick trip to St. Louis and spent a couple of days doing our favorite things: touring places that give you beer and looking at art. Folks, I just have to say if you've never had Budweiser beer straight from the beechwood finishing vats, you don't know what you are missing. Our guide literally turned on a tap on the side of the giant barrel and let each of us on the Biermeister tour fill our 20 oz. glasses with 35 degree, unpasteurized ambrosia. I told Kellie if I could get beer like that all the time, I wouldn't even eat. I would just drink all the time. It was so delicious! Our guide said that unpasteurized Budweiser actually contains all the nutrients you need to live, and its live yeast is an excellent probiotic that keeps your digestive system healthy. In case you are wondering, Budweiser in bottles and cans is pasteurized to kill the live yeast. If the yeast was not killed, it would continue to create alcohol from the sugars in the beer, and each bottle or can would have a different alcohol level, taste, and texture. Anheuser-Busch pasteurizes all of their products in bottles and cans so that the product tastes the same no matter where you buy it anywhere in the world. Keg beer, on the other hand, does contain live yeast, and, therefore, tastes better unless it has sat around in temperatures conducive to the live yeast consuming sugars and creating alcohol. Never drink from a keg over 30 days old, he said, it may have alcohol content as high as 14 to 15 percent and taste like sh*t. Anyhow...
The picture above is a Van Gogh landscape in the St. Louis art museum. I do not know if this painting was new to the museum, but the informational placard was. It said that at one period in his life Van Gogh was painting as many as 70 landscape paintings a month. It seems to me that activity would devalue his work tremendously, but what do I know?
Last year, I had an anniversary poem that I rehashed from years ago. I didn't think about an anniversary poem this year until this morning with all of the busy-ness of the last week. However, I did finish two poems for the Poem-a-Week challenge. Here they are: ENJOY!
The Bluejay
He never picks a fight he cannot flee.
He never finds a fruit he does not peck.
He shrieks at every songbird in the tree
But never hears a noise he does not check.
Today, he chased a house wren from her nest,
Then flew and took a big shit in the bath.
He argued with the sun which way was West
Before he squawked at squirrels with all his wrath.
I saw him take blackberries from the vine
And drop them in the raised bed by the rose.
He doesn’t know I keep the thornless kind.
He hopes a seed’s unwanted where it grows.
I’ve never seen his nest nor where he sleeps.
I have no doubt he flies each day from Hell.
His howls, his wails, his yelps, even his peeps,
Reveal his fowl demonic mind quite well.
And another:
I Think I Age the Most at Night
I think I age the most at night
When dreaming gives me perfect sight
Into a past when I was young
And words were candy on my tongue.
I dream of deep, enchanted sleep,
The slumber of a dragon’s keep,
But wake to groans and painful sighs,
The aches bedaubing my mind’s lies.
I search in midnight’s soft eclipse
To find my lover’s silent lips.
Her sleep, serene and beautiful,
Makes my coarse sleep seem dim and dull.
I’m tempted to give her a shake
And shout to her, “Awake! Awake!
We’re speeding ‘round a wicked sun
That cooks our days till we are done.”
But I do not. I let her sleep.
I pull the sheets up in a heap
And toss and turn until it’s light.
I think I age the most at night.
I haven't been writing much about the poetic process lately. If you would like to know more or for me to include more details about the poems that I write--or any other poems for that matter, let me know at mbt1966@yahoo.com. Please do not forget that you can get one of our books at Lulu.com. Look for Essential Words by Michael B. Thomas. Here is a picture of the cover.
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