Oh my Guinness!

i receive and read the weekly issue of The Week magazine, and immediately turn to the back of publication 2 enter writing contest, and although my blurbs never mustard enough bite a short story begat.

A world-famous
brand of dark, Irish dry stout
inflation pushed the price
of a pint above six euros ($7.08),
and found the madding crowd
"absolutely wild" and ready to rout
they got spooked when they saw me

how ghastly I looked,

no idea what this Mötley Crüe...
arch! time machine burnout

re: major malfunction

must be the cause,
I strongly suspected

mine major disorientation about
my physical environment
to a bad dream

but...this can't be feasible

cause I see the ghost
of...who else, but...
me Arthur Guinness,
who established brewery in 1759

unwittingly mentioned in conversation

with a very attractive matronly patron,

the beer not necessarily the woman
global symbol of Ireland,
often referred to
as the "black stuff,"
and now owned by Diageo.
who comes over
to ask me a question
despite myself espying
a picture of Dorian Grey
writer by Oscar Wilde
and storied novel
his likeness on the wall,
who vaguely resembled...
someone very familiar to these
myopic bloodshot eyes
which phantasmagoric portrait
must be a trick,
cause as a man of the cloth
I abstain imbibing
amber liquids of the gods
no matter their strong temptation
to grant or maintain
immortality and strength
and as a teetotaler maker of ale
reputation of mind

never suffered nary a hint

despite being on the brink

(of what appeared as delirium tremens

but in truth severe debilitating panic attacks

of unquestionable veracity the source),

thus to appease the unquenchable

ofttimes implacable raging thirst

assuaged by sipping ice cold spring water)

unlike hardcore booze hounds
on the prowl for the finest liquor or other drink

but some unbeknownst customer
or rather rat fink
undoubtedly spiked

and I did intuitively suspect

an unknown rapscallion
who reviled against
Bible thumping blue blood
set out along or accompanied
with others to hoodwink

yours truly, thus to play along
and aside from feeling woozy

courtesy nursing feigned drunken stupor

think yours truly

walked like a chicken

"Yiddish phrase sounding

something like schocke mach,"
(and feel free to inform me
the correct Yiddish phrase)
in tandem with other unpleasant symptoms

methought maybe I contracted bird flu

twittering away like a madman
totally out of my element
analogously being cast
within the drama that did drag
titled La Cage aux Folles,
and felt confused and dazed
but lo... in the distance

methought "Ocular orbs"

(a literary or poetic term
referring to the eyes or eyeballs,
describing them as spherical,
globe-like, or circular)

saw a stairway to heaven

(courtesy smart glasses

invention - perhaps patented
by some smart as a whip kid
generously bestowed
with eye popping
handsome funds to said kiddo
to the tune of the number one
with countless zeroes)
device currently owned
by Mark Zuckerberg),

a visionary who set his sights nabbing
the future without making
a spectacle of himself
actually enhancing acolytes
and his expanding population
of growing devotees
immediately transforming them
into professorial hirees
ready equipped with teaching
the subject of their choice
by dint of instantaneously
acquiring the book knowledge
and absorbing years worth of experience,

albeit augmented virtual hands on skills

in a flash-drive becoming qualified

masters of their domain
despite the ample naysayers

(throwbacks from the quaint old school

of bricks and mortar

with one teacher -
at most two
who taught grades one thru six),

yet whose poo pooing
drowned out by the ability
of the average lunkhead
to osmotically breathe
in the requisite trappings
within the figurative
and literal blink of an eye
undermining parochial and private

school establishment paradigms
and nursery rhymes

harkening back
to Colonial American times when

School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, "I Love You, Joe"
When those innocent babes in the woods
were a couple o' kids
at some juncture labeled truants,

whose ideas of skipping school
or - "Playing hooky,"
meant to skip school or work,
originated in mid-19th century America,
with the first known print usage
appearing around 1848
in New York, and widely believed
to derive from the Dutch word
hoekje (nook/corner),
referring to a game
of hide-and-seek,
or from the slang "hook it,"
meaning to run generations ago
intentionally skipping school or work
for freedom, often involving fishing,
wandering in woods, or hiding out,
with roots back to the 1840s,
and involved faking illnesses,
creating false excuses
like farm chores,
or sneaking away
to enjoy empty homes
without the risk of
instant digital tracking
unlike sophisticated youth
of the second decade
after second millennium anno domino
(with guys sporting beard as guise
or dolls gifted with noticeable bosom -
a strong suspicion
videre licet breast enhancement)
with access to their own vehicle,
plus whose physically mature appearance
functioned like a golden ticket
allowing, enabling and providing opportunity
(ordinarily verboten),
who this writer (predicated on
his overactive imagination)
appeared for home room
than high-tailed

to some adult oriented
bawdy illicit activity.