Close Reads

Cheers: Reading a Poem by Alan Shapiro

Country Western Singer

I used to feel like a new man
After the day’s first brew.
But then the new man I became
Would need a tall one too.

As would the new man he became,
And the new one after him
And so on and so forth till the new men made
The dizzy room go dim.

And each one said, I’ll be your muse,
I’ll trade you song for beer:
He said, I’ll be your salt lick, honey,
If you will be my deer.

He said, I’ll be your happy hour,
And you, boy, you’ll be mine
And mine won’t end at six or seven
Or even at closing time.

Yes, son, I’ll be your spirit guide;
I’ll lead you to Absolut,
To Dewars, Bushmills, and Jamesons,
Then down to Old Tangle Foot.

And there I’ll drain the pretense from you
That propped you up so high;
I’ll teach you salivation’s just
Salvation without the I.

To hear his sweet talk was to think
You’d gone from rags to riches,
Till going from drink to drink became
Like going from hags to bitches,

Like going from bed to barroom stool,
From stool to bathroom stall,
From stall to sink, from sink to stool,
From stool to hospital.

Now the monitors beep like pinball machines,
And coldly the IV drips;
And a nurse runs a moistened washcloth over
My parched and bleeding lips,

And the blood I taste, the blood I swallow
Is as far away from wine
As 5:10 is for the one who dies
At 5:09.

Common meter for the common man. Neat quatrains. Until it all comes unraveled in the two-beat last line. This may be one of the world’s best poem endings. A closure like a trap door snapped shut. One minute alive, the next minute dead.

There is no country western song as loaded with literary hijinks as Alan Shapiro’s poem, “Country Western Singer.” The title feels like a long stretch. But it’s a stretch worth pondering. It’s the stretch from song to poetry, from “new” and “first” to the fatal alcoholic crash. Each stanza spins the tale of addiction. Alcohol comes alive, personified. The poem is free of moral judgment, personal anecdote, mental anguish, or even the drinker’s personality. And this is the truth about alcohol—it consumes the drinker. The drinker becomes the personification of alcohol.

So who is this country western singer: the drinker or the alcohol?—the alcohol that morphs from new men to muse, salt lick, happy hour, spirit guide. Perhaps the title flavors the poem with intimations of stardom, sequins, and spurs—the fantasy of fame is like the fantasy of alcohol: flashy outside, hollow inside.

Country western songs are often witty (“If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me”), but Shapiro’s poem flies wit into the wisdom that only poets have. Each stanza is its own vicious cycle. And with each new stanza, the cycles intensify, until finally the body swallows its own blood. The body, which has become the personification of alcohol, consumes itself.

The last remnant of humanity is the body’s blood tasted on the lips—a pathetic scene. Yet the poem’s tone is refreshingly free of sap and scorn. It’s a true portrait of alcohol, and alcohol doesn’t care.