It’s 2:34AM and I’m Coming Down Hard

This canned purple promises
limitless energy, so quaff I must!
Must I?
Ol’ must eye stammers
a little in his stocking feet
and goes thumping down the bloodstained rue,
with a tick tick here, a tic tic there.
Tic tacs, everywhere!
And thousands,
if not millions of crimson ghosts
peel their masks in confusion,
setting the stage for a paunch-bellied putsch
by pricks of every stripe.
Not to gripe, but you know,
griping is how I process.
Given the circumstances, I think
I can be forgiven for being full of gripes
as wine is full of gripes.
Grapes, I mean.
I meant grapes.

-r. miller