I’ve Had Jussht Sheven
(with apologies to Mr. Wordsworth)
The Pilot in the airport bar
Was sober, he averred;
“How many have you had so far?”
“Jussht sheven dhrrrinks,” he slurred.
“I downed five beers at JFK;
Three double gins in flight;
At LAX, I put away
Four Bourbons and a pint.”
I told him that his math was off,
And sixteen was his score;
He gave his Captain’s hat a doff,
And said, “I’m game for more.”
He ordered up another drink:
“My limit is eleven.
I’m good for eight more shots, I think;
I’m schtill three shy of sheven.”
Douglas G. Brown is a New England Yankee, having been born in Belfast, Maine. In fifth grade, his first poem was an irreverent elegy on a local hero, Admiral William Veazie Pratt: “Admiral William Veazie Pratt/Did not expire just like that;/At 87, he went blind,/And then he slowly lost his mind.” His classmates enjoyed it, but the teacher scolded him for “not taking poetry seriously enough.” He has been not taking poetry seriously enough ever since. His work has been published by the Maine Limerick Project, Trinacria, Light, Lighten Up Online, and The Spectator.