The Drunkard's Prayer

Bless me, Father, for I am full of booze.
I know--it’s not exactly breaking news
To see me weaving like a wind-blown kite
And slurring all my words--it’s just tonight.
Please let me keep my big stupid mouth shut.
After three pints, I talk out of my butt,
Lecturing everyone like they’re a dope
And I’m one half professor, one half Pope--
Laying the law down in a monologue
With more Thou Shalt Not’s than the Decalogue.
Forgive me for that silly incident
That turned into a drunken argument
Where all I did was pound the bar and shout.
I can’t remember what it was about.
I do recall, at some point, someone threw
A pint of Guinness and a punch or two
When I called him a product of inbreeding.
(I guess that’s why my forehead is still bleeding.)



Bless me, Father, for I got truly faced
Not letting shots of whiskey go to waste.
The ones I drank tonight could fill two steins
(That’s why my head is full of cactus spines).
Forgive me for the 2AM drunk text
I sent to You Know Who, on the pretext
That all was well between the two of us
And not foul, toxic, sad and hideous.
I only saw the text this afternoon
In my SENT folder, and thought: “You baboon--
What did you do that for? You must be nuts
To have her on your cell--she hates your guts.
Delete her number. Now. Don’t even think.”
“Okay,” I said, “I will. After this drink.”
And one glass led to four which led to ten,
And there I was, texting the girl again
As if our past had been a party room
And not a mine field set to go KABOOM.
Forgive me for my years of married life.
That too was alcohol. As for my wife,
I didn’t know, because I was so drunk,
She thought the perfect marriage bed was bunk.
It’s not her fault God never made her kind,
So let her next love be a little blind,
And let me run into her now and then,
So I can back up and hit her again.


Bless me, Father, my jokes are all obscene
And half the time I act like I’m nineteen.
That’s still the age I think I am inside,
And since, as we all know, booze will un-hide
The secrets in our souls, it just seems right
When it brings all my teenage flaws to light:
Thinking that I can kick the ass of death,
Or run a mile without one struggling breath,
Or think my future’s still ahead of me
Instead of being ancient history.
Forgive me for the drunken pass I made
At whatsername, hoping that I’d get laid--
Like that could ever happen. Sex is iffy
When you’re too smashed to get a decent stiffy.
Liquored up? I’m a failure at coition:
The best that I can do in my condition
Is hug and kiss and (when I stick my ass out)
Try not to do a face plant when I pass out.




Oh Lord, save me from excess hypertension
And those who think I need an intervention.
Save me from blondes, both real and from the bottle.
Save me from brunettes that I want to throttle.
Save me from redheads with their scarlet bangs--
The only sane ones are orangutangs.
Save me from hitting on Jane, Jill or Jenny
Whenever I’ve had ten or twelve too many,
And let me not remember what I said
To try to get their asses into bed
Or all the needy depths I did descend to--
And if I can’t forget, let me pretend to.
Oh Lord, let me get buybacks everywhere,
And let me make a style out of despair.
Let my salvation never quite find me
And dessication be my destiny.
Let me be laughed with when I’m not laughed at
And never wear a lampshade for a hat.
I don’t care if the world thinks I’m a joke--
Just let my liver work until I croak.


Copyright 2010 Matthew J Wells (Hic!)