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It would have started with a shot of rum
far from here in some distant tavern,
on a night neither of us recalls, -- maybe "could recall" or "can recall"?
where across calm chaos,
illuminated by indifferent moonlight, -- this and the previous line together are evocative---i suppose part of it is because i always like "[adjective] moonlight"---but, taken alone, maybe "calm chaos" could be more specific?
you claimed to hate spirits.
A shot would turn into a cup
(eventually the whole bottle) -- better not in parentheses: "A shot would turn into a cup, / eventually the whole bottle / shared..."
shared between us; -- better colon than semicolon.
there would be no spark,
just a warm fire
kindling off blissful ignorance. -- is it not just "kindle [noun]", not "kindle off [noun]"? more importantly, i think "blissful ignorance" reads cliche: it's more proverbial than "calm chaos" but just as abstract.
It would only be further fed by sweet wine -- this is maybe where i get a little lost, since the alimentary progression feels off. in meals, to be fair, it's aperitif to table wines to digestif, but that the speakers polished off a whole bottle indicates the image is meant to be less classy, in which case it really should be various wines to various spirits, all of increasing proof.
set ablaze by the shadow
of the overlooked fireplace -- if this stanza were to be kept, comma here.
dancing flames barely reflected
in your still irises
(words unspoken burn
with brimming passion). -- last two lines seem a little....unwieldy? again, better not in parentheses, with the part of speech for "burn" being modified for parallelism, i.e. "words unspoken burning / with brimming passion", but then such a change would necessitate changing "brimming", as it would then sound rather awkward. but ultimately my problem here, which might even extend to the idea in the previous two lines of flames reflecting off someone's eyes, is similar to my problem with "blissful ignorance" earlier: "passionate burning words" is simultaneously too common and too abstract, and here, because it's a whole clause rather than just a couple of words, it seems a little...pretentious? too.
White flakes would swim in whiskey: -- i had to google what this meant: we may have two bottles of fancy whiskey in the house, but none of us are frequent drinkers. i first thought this meant flakes of skin or backwash---after all, the second stanza has the potential sense of sharing cups or sharing bottles---then, still before googling, i thought this meant flakes of ice, in which case it would feel rather sad, having let the ice melt to such a state. finally, it has come to my attention that whiskey may sometimes be found with flakes of ash from the barrels in which it is aged: certainly, a more tenable image, but you may need someone more seasoned in spirits to judge if this line truly works, in terms of its image.
in terms of grammar, since all of the previous conditionals refers to the progress of the drinkers, rather than the quality of their drinks, much better if
White flakes swimming in whiskey,
a bottle
then another
passed between us like inhalers:
and so on.
a bottle
then another
passed between us like inhalers— -- see above. throughout the piece, i have been left wondering what it's actually about, but now i can imagine, with more surety, it's about a couple of alcoholics, or maybe about alcoholism in general. in which case the piece would feel...not loose or even moribund enough, really...but, again, as someone who's only gotten properly drunk once, and who doesn't have much experience with more frequent bingers, maybe such neutrality is just as verisimilitudinous as, i dunno, the total abandon in something like kendrick lamar's "swimming pools (drank)"? or stan rogers' "giant"? or all the various anacreontic hymns in existence?
a brief relief in denial
of the encroaching miasma. -- akin to the last two lines of the previous stanza, these again don't quite work for me. "brief relief" seems like an unnecessary rhyme; "relief in (or perhaps through) denial" is, itself, better, but then "denial of miasma" is again, if not too abstract---to someone presently immersed in miasma theory and just classical medicine in general, "miasma" is an actual, concrete image---then too vague, as surely the speaker is trying to evade something more contemporary than malarial air.
Then only a neutered fireplace, -- when it comes to poetry, i like the idea of neutering things, so this would be a plus, if there had been something more charged to neuter in the first place, but so far, the previous stanzas---with the exception of the one about wine---just aren't sexy enough, nor do they build up to a strong enough climax.
hazy memories, abandoned worlds, -- i would again refer to my note on "blissful ignorance", which applies exactly to both phrases of this line.
and two cups of gin on burnt logs: -- is alcohol normally served on burnt logs? but i am certain it would be more appropriate to have the gin be served in glasses.
one half full,
one half bare. -- the proverbial phrase, of course, is "one half empty", and i'm not sure the deviation from the proverbial here is appropriate, since, to me, it leads to a sort of reverse-neutering, "bare" connoting the sex that should have already been removed with the stanza's first line.
beyond being a poem about a couple of hard drinkers, i detect this is also a poem about these drinkers drifting apart, perhaps due to their alcoholism, but i don't really get an indication of that except in the last two lines. or maybe the last two lines were supposed to be a big reveal, but for that to work there has to be some kind of contrast, and the two subjects of the poem aren't given any sort of character outside of this. i think, overall, the piece comes very close to fully capturing a mood, the way lines are broken is effective enough, and none of the words chosen really err in relation to the others, but that's about it for me: i can't even be sure to what end such a mood is being captured.
