Zen Wine
So red, so sweet, I quaff it quick;
I do not drink this non-wine. *Hic!*
Commentary on Zen Wine:
One morning, just before waking, I dreamed that I was visited by the ghost of Julia Vinograd, the Bubble Lady of Telegraph Avenue, and Poet Laureate of Berkeley. She challenged me to a poetry duel; she'd say one line, then I the next. How could I refuse such a challenge from such a muse? So we agreed.
Julia Vinograd produced a goblet of red wine; she drank, then said a line in praise of the wine in deliciously eccentric Vinogradian terms. She passed the goblet of wine to me; I drank deep, and it was sweet. I finished the goblet, looked down into it, and could think of nothing but, "I'm not drinking, and this isn't wine." Then I woke up.
I remembered the whole dream vividly. I counted Vinograd's line; eight syllables long. I counted mine; oh no, nine! Nor did it rhyme! I shortened it by one syllable, then two, and added the hic for comic effect. But by then - alas! - waking amnesia of dreams kicked in, and I entirely forgot what Julia said!
So as I lay there in bed, I rewrote that first line myself. I included the memory of the sweet red dream wine; then I found a rhyme, then a consonance. I edited it to eight syllables, and it worked.
I turned to the side of my bed, picked up my wallet, and wrote the poem in its datebook. Then I lay back in bed. Much later I rewrote Zen Wine as an email.
One friend of mine calls Zen Wine a Zen poem. Another calls it proof of a haunting. Well, it was good to meet Julia again, even though there's no proof that we met. Julia's eight syllables were brilliant and witty, but I doubt any of hers are in my poem. What I got from her was absence, which I, a lying poet, filled in. Ghosts haunt by their absence.
I have three rules about spooky poetic encounters like these:
1. Keep calm.
2. Play along.
3. Take credit afterwards.
So it was I who wrote this poem, but I dedicate it to Julia Vinograd, for inspiring it.
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