Nunc est bibendum. To condescend the phrase
into the preferred demotic—Latin that
plain folks talk, picking up Anglish from
the cowboy and High Dutch from the sergeant—
we may translate the suggestion, “Let’s get burnt,”
or choose the style of C. E. Bennett (Cornell
University, nineteen fourteen):
“Now is the time to drain the flowing bowl.”
However you say it, let us grab this hour
to float glorious magenta peonies
in blue bowls on festival tables
as we gather to cherish victory.
Until this afternoon, it seemed unlucky
to break out the cider we pressed last autumn.
We feared that Senator Hell might win,
wagging his sullied tail to celebrate
fund-raising, bigotry, merde, contempt for art,
and detestation of the First Amendment.
Fundamental J. Virtue, D.D.,
joined forces with Representative Roar
and tobacco’s senator to assemble
checks and attention by denouncing poets,
homosexuals, painters, Marxists,
thieves, violinists, and people like that
except for Andrew Wyeth. They lost the vote
and their boats burn in the harbor. Let us drink
to the survival of liberty—
but remain vigilant: The enemy
always survives, for Egyptian solutions
don’t wash in Washington. Senator Hell knows
no humiliation in defeat:
He sniffs, looking for something to roll in.