My Native State

I'll bet that's a Minnesotan--
That one, there, without a coat on...
"Hey, it's winter! This ain't fall!"
Ah, skip it! That guy's from St. Paul.

Note: I was born and raised in St. Paul, MN. It gets even colder in Duluth, so here's a story told in limericks about that city--chosen mainly for the sake of the rhymes:

Ginless Martinis -- in Five Lime Rickeys

There was once a young man in Duluth

Who was awfully fond of vermouth.
Calling for a martini,
He’d say, "Please, gin part TEENY!"
For he feared straight vermouth was uncouth.

Now his favorite bartender was Morton,
Who would hold back the gin -- very sportin’!
"One more moretini, Martin --
Don’t be shtinting, you Shpartan!...
One vermeeth, I moon--gin you can short on."

He was picked up one night, this spoiled youth,
By a dame rather long in the tooth;
She said, "Babe, let’s vamoose,
But the boy was so loose
That they collapsed in the nearest phone booth.

In the darkness, they giggled and groped.
She was old, he was drunk, but they coped;
Given darkness and youth,
Vermouth made its own truth...
The next morning he learned they’d eloped.

Yes, there’s wormwood, my friends, in vermouth.
Whether toping or tupping, forsooth,
Stir or shake it, but thin
Your sweet vermouth with gin...
What the hell! It’s December. It’s Duluth.

[Note: I don't know if anyone else strings limericks into a narrative. I've written several such limerick groups. Lime Rickey, besides being a drink, spells out "limerickey." "Toping"=heavy drinking. "Tupping"=mounting (for sex), literally a ram mounting a ewe. I have no idea whether gin "thins" the vermouth, weakening the drink or vice versa, but for this poem, I needed vermouth to get the guy in trouble. In fact, I don't think I've ever tasted a martini. I just realized that a martini is idea for tupping, since, spelled backwards it is IN IT, RAM! A good drink for Aries?]


Dean Blehert
Blogs:
http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
New book (Deanotations, Volume 1) available at http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/deanotations-volume-one/4649669
WWW.BLEHERT.COM