Dear Old Tom

There are strange drinks mashed in a poet’s glass,

From ports on the edge of sin;

But the harshest bite on a winter’s night,

Is the kiss of a cold, clear gin.

I’ve sipped on rum in a Cuban dawn,

And whiskey aged in oak—

But gin’s the song of the lonely heart,

A muse for the dreams we invoke.

Now, the night was bleak as a poet’s grief,

And my hands were numb with frost;

My thoughts were numb, my courage thin,

My faith in the world near lost.

So I trudged to a bar on a cobblestone street,

Where the lamplight burned like sin;

And I whispered low to the weathered barkeep:

“Pour me a measure of gin.”

He slid me a glass with a knowing nod,

For he’d seen my kind before—

A soul who was searching for something sharp,

A cure at a liquor store.

The gin was clear as a moral lie,

With a scent like evergreen grief;

I took a breath, I raised the glass,

And drank my fleeting relief.

Oh, gin! You silver, shimmering vice,

You absinthe of the stars—

You wash away the stench of life,

You polish old battle scars.

You come from juniper’s bitter fruit,

Like truth from a bitter tongue;

And when the world’s too hard to bear,

You remind me I’m still young.

I’ve drunk you warm in a sailor’s bar,

And cold from a chipped glass cup;

In parlors rich with velvet cloth,

In stalls where the rats wake up.

You are at once the courtly drink

Of dukes with powdered skin—

And the solace of a pauper’s heart

Who can’t afford the spin.

But make no mistake, dear Gin of mine,

You’re a paradoxical friend—

You lift me up at the bitter start,

Then drop me at the end.

Like Charles Baudelaire in a moonlit room,

You whisper, “Drink & escape!”

You numb the heart to pain and grief,

Then sketch them back in shape.

And so I drink, as Robert Service wrote

‘Neath starlight sharp and keen,

My feet in snow, my heart in flame,

My thoughts somewhere unseen.

For life is frost, and love is fire,

And dreams are often grim—

But we endure the weary hours

With the clarity of gin.

Now people say that gin is cruel,

A thief in a glassy disguise;

It steals your reason, blinds your sense,

And leaves you to compromise.

But I’ve found truth in its crisp embrace,

A mirror for the soul;

It strips the pomp and peels the pride,

Till I stand raw and whole.

Let others hoard their golden draughts,

Their bourbons fine and old;

I’ll take the frost that burns the tongue,

The drink that tastes like bold.

For you, my gin, are honest steel—

No honeyed lie or spin;

You meet me where the night is deep,

And say, “Let’s begin again.”

Through bitter air, through heart’s despair,

Through winters cruel and long—

I’ll hold my glass, I’ll take my sip,

I’ll hum my bitter song.

And when the dawn brings hollow light,

And the day moves slow and thin—

I’ll smile and sigh, and raise my voice:

“I’ll drink again, to gin.”

When I die (as we all must do),

Lay me beneath the pine;

Pour juniper’s scent and evergreen tears

On this weary heart of mine.

And if some distant poet reads

These lines in a dusty bin—

May they light their soul with fire and ice,

And toast, in kind, to gin.

For as long as life means work and pain,

And hearts break from within—

There’ll be those who find their solace

In the clarity of gin.

So pour me one last stiff bouquet,

Let my weary bones begin

To settle into sacred sleep

On a pillow steeped in gin.

And should Baudelaire ask me why

I turned to such a friend—

I’ll smile and say: “To numb the night,

And feel alive again.”

For love is scarce and truth is thin,

And faith is hard to win—

So here’s my heart, my ink, my soul:

A love letter… to gin.