Having scaled the mountains of the moon
with no sherpa for a guide,

having eaten steak and kidney pie
in the depths of despair
in a diminutive pub in Soho,

having consumed five-alarm chili
at The Brimstone Club
on All Saint’s Eve,

having wandered at random
through the endless galleries
of The Louvre on a wet afternoon,

having crawled the Continent
for love, for fury, for nothing
more than an impulse of the times,

he became a brash statistic
in the sordid history of absinthe,

all the fascinating sensations
of deranged hallucination

and his unspent masterpieces
revolving in his head.