Secret Drinker

by Clive James and Pete Atkin

Perching high like an old-time man of law
He travels on a barstool to enchanted lands
And as the world before him swims and glows
The secret drinker's only sure that he is real
By the feel of his elbows and the steadily increasing
Weight of his forehead in his hands

And behind the bar
Like turreted and battlemented towns of long ago
The lines of coloured bottles swim and glow
Brilliantly as at the day of wrath
Or the year of the comet
But the secret drinker is far from it
Away from it all

He can ease the present back into the past
Staring at the pastels and the prisms on the shelf
With the magic words that make the evening last
The same again and have one for yourself

He's a connoisseur
He can space it out with chasers, he can let it burn
It's a trick it takes a little while to learn
You might see the youngsters of today sniff a cork and they vomit
But the secret drinker is far from it
Away from it all

He can make the looming future lose its sting
Staving off the pressure is a bargain at the price
Of the magic words that make the angels sing
The same again, go easy on the ice

Perching high like an old-time man of law
He travels on a barstool to enchanted lands
And as the world before him swims and glows
The secret drinker's only sure that he is real
By the feel of his elbows and the steadily increasing
Weight of his forehead in his hands that should be ceasing
To tremble by now and beginning to resemble
The hands of a man he used to know

Note (from Collected Poems)

Hart Crane used to call it ‘wine talons’: the grip of the grape. After I gave up drinking, by public demand, I found it easier to describe why the hooch was so glamorous for those susceptible to its embrace. But even when I was still regularly smashed I was lyrical on the subject. From the angle of civic responsibility, it surely makes more sense to evoke the attractions of a vice than to deplore its results. The obvious love poured into this lyric should be a clear warning to stay clear of the stuff. Or anyway, that’s my rationale for having had such a luxurious time putting the images together. Pete, whose idea of a binge was to drink a whole half-pint in a single evening, was nevertheless inspired to a sympathetic melodic line, as if he, too, had dipped his head into liquid hell and drawn back just before the shark struck.