When a pint is not a PINT

Morning essay on drinking beer in American bars & brewpubs compared with the British pub experience (after learning to appreciate really good beer in Germany in my youth – mostly lagers and weissbiers – and living on and off in Oxford, England since 2012):

After another in a long line of disappointing beer experiences in American brewpubs and bars, I decided to finally look into this comparative pint and pint glass situation, and it is worse than I feared. First, an American pint is 16 ounces or 473 ml, while a British/Commonwealth/Irish Imperial pint is 568 ml. Who cares, you say? Because we are talking about beer and whether or not you are getting your money’s worth!

It gets worse. Because there are no laws and no effective nationwide advocacy groups like CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) looking out for the public, American pints of 16 ounces are often underpoured to 14 ounces to allow for the foamy head inside the top of a glass that may or may not even be 16 ounces! I was once even served in a cognac glass at a microbrewery when I ordered their darkest beer!!! Then factor in that even decent American micro-brewery beers and lagers (much less all the more popular “light beers”) generally have a good bit less alcohol than the stronger British and Irish beers, ales, bitters, porters, and stouts, and that just finding a dark beer in most bars is an impossibility (much less one on draft).

This leads to the conclusion that drinking beer in the US is pretty sad and pathetic compared with the exalted Vallhalla-esque experience of drinking locally-made real pints of much stronger beer all across the UK from Kent in England to Cardiff in Wales and from Land’s End in Cornwall to Culloden in Scotland. Now here’s an area in which Britannia still rules! And it’s in no danger of seeing its Empire of Ale crumble, largely thanks to CAMRA, which basically has been saving the British beer industry, pubs, and the beer-drinker’s experience from Corporate Bollocksism for the last 40 years or so!

Now, the state of Michigan appears to be ahead of the curve on such things due to its rather large number of microbreweries, but the US essentially needs its own nationwide version of CAMRA to begin to rectify this awful situation. Until then, I’ll just have to continue drinking my Guinness when and if I can find it on the drinks menu. Even out of a can.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pint_glass

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Visions

 

The Moundville Rattlesnake Disc (Holmes 1883)

 

Eat and vomit, and let the visions begin –

of the Tree People who beckon and call from the darkest depths,

of snakes flying out of the burial pots of clay,

reciprocal cults of wandering shaman emerge

from the funeral mounds, and chant throughout the square.

The goddess blinks and smiles for you alone –

isn’t it time you dance inside of her?

Broken Glass

The ruby river of tears, bloody tears

tastes like port flowing from a broken glass

at a picnic table sitting on Wolvercote Green

where laughter rings and glasses clink together

in a garden where dogs and boys are running wild

and little Clara Rose chases them down

until she falls and scrapes her knee and

I wipe the port away and you refill

and heal our shattered spirits with a gentle kiss.

Portmeadow Kisses

 

Portmeadow, Oxford, England

The smell of her skin in Oxford showers

Her hands combing my hair at night

The taste of whisky while I look in her eyes

Her sideways smile, so fresh and silly,

Tea in the morning, singing songs at night

Serious, studious, loving, and sweet

The idea of her forest by the sea

Portmeadow kisses, indescribable blisses

Lips of fire so fierce and free

 

Simanolanoki

 

[refrain]:

Simanolanoki Flow Away

Our love is broken on your shoals

The sacred fire that burned within my heart

Like you it ebbs and flows away

 

The hawk has flown away upon the wind

The breezes carry him away

The love I gave to you in heart and song

Like the hawk has flown away

 

[refrain]

 

Now like the empty field where once we roamed

Where only broken sherds remain

My heart is empty too, unworthy muse

My love for you has flown away

 

[refrain]

 

I’ve closed the book of love I wrote for you

Odshisi carries it away

My heart is mine again to give or break

Flow, Wild River, flow away

 

[refrain 2x]

10,000 Years

The Reader cannot read
The sleeper cannot sleep
The singer cannot sing
For love of you

The dreamer cannot dream
The diver cannot dive
Except into your eyes
Ageless and green

But the poet writes your soul
And the painter paints my heart
While 10,000 years of time
Smile through the ice

And 10,000 more may come
Before such souls may meet
And I would spend them all
O muse with you

Flow into Me

Minds afire, Hearts as one

Dreams descend when Day is done,

Deep in your Soul broad rivers run

Dark is my Night, bright is your Sun;

Shadows flee when I look in your eyes,

Stars grow weak and fall from the skies,

From Fires in our Souls sparks arise,

Love makes the Magic that never dies;

You are the River, I am the Sea,

You are the Earth, I am a Tree,

My roots run deep, your Spirit flows free,

Run into You, Flow into Me.

Silent Tombs of Despair

Let yesteryear’s kisses lay hidden in the shadows of time,

For the ghosts who haunt time’s halls are silent and sad,

Though still they remember the fires and desires of love,

And they envy the fire in my heart and the flowers in your eyes;

Listen, o muse, to the song they would sing to your heart – 

Of death, who strangled their hopes, silenced their songs,

And buried their love in silent tombs of despair;

Their bones now rest ‘neath the Earth, though their shades remain, 

Chained to the places they haunted when their lips were warm;

Perhaps these spirits will awaken when you fling wide your soul,

Full of winter and storms, of springtime and sassafras tea – 

Perhaps even yesteryear’s sighs may meet with today’s

When we are the ghosts who sigh and long for one kiss,

And the poems and songs of tomorrow are sung o’er our graves.

 

When You’re White with Age

When you’re white with Age, and I’m asleep in my Grave,
Buried and awaiting my final excavation,
Think back on your youth, and smile, and raise me a glass.
When Time has shortened your breath and flowed away,
And those twin suns you have for eyes are setting
Beyond the River of Night, and you long to sleep,
Remember – and our shadows will rise up like ghosts in your Mind,
Trooping onto Memory’s stage while salt tears flow.
Then the very words we spoke will be spoken again,
And the very hearts we broke will be broken again,
And the Visions you inspired in my Heart and in my Mind
With your lovely dark eyes will burst through our Souls
Like a Supernova, or your magical smile in the fall.
And we will be One, if only for that instant in Time
While you recite the words of the Poet to his Muse,
When you’re white with Age, and I’m asleep in my Grave.

 

One with Night

Until my Muse bids me from bed to rise

I will remain cocooned in Night’s embrace;

Though Day himself demand I open these eyes,

I’m deaf to Day when Night’s kisses fall on my face.

Dressed all in black lace, her pale shoulder’s bare,

Luscious her lips, ghostly her secretive smile,

Loose and disheveled her ebony moonlit hair

In which I’ll be entangled for but a while.

For awhile I’ll dream of the stars in her dark, dark eyes;

For but awhile may I be one with Sweetest Night;

‘Til My Muse bids me again from bed to rise –

Reborn on the wings of Day, Night’s songs take flight.