Poetry from Alex Stolis

How to Drink Yourself Sober

Step Five: Admitted to god, ourselves & another human being

– First confessional

Bless me father for I have sinned. I’m not going to tell

you I don’t buy anything you’re selling. Or twelve years

from now I’ll be driving blackout drunk, arm roped out

the window. You are not going to hear that twenty years

from now I will know the barrel of a gun tastes sour cold

sharp. You’ve no idea that one day she’ll not have to say

a word. The sky will burst in flames, heavens will plunge

into the sea. So, go ahead Father, tell me God’s forgiven

my sins. To go in peace. I have paid my penance by fire

and ash. Been absolved in cinder and smoke. 

How to Drink Yourself Sober

Preamble: The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking

Let it bleed baby, bleed till we’re white. We are pale riders. Ghosts sucking the light 

out of the tunnel, our bones left to blot out the sun. We are sons and daughters waiting

to mourn; ready to set the world on fire.

she calls me by name but I don’t recognize her

voice, the smell of her perfume, soap, shampoo

her body against mine is light:

all legs, long hair and ready

to start a revolution

she starts to say something but I can’t hear

I can only watch,

thinking I’m clever, knowing

she can see right through me

I am that fly on the wall. Yes. A thousand eyes. Unfocused, unclean, unable to swallow

and she knows. Yes she does. It is not to her advantage to forget. She’s watched

every move I make. I know. I know and there is power in knowledge.

I have that power. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste it.

How to Drink Yourself Sober

A Design for Living

When she’s five her mother spun a tale 

of an angel who dropped to earth, 

landed in a quarry. 

She fell in love with a mortal, 

asked him to bind her wings tight 

against her back, 

tried unsuccessfully to fit into his world. 

Years later, when he died, she found herself

unable to fly back to heaven. 

In her grief she flung herself into a marble slab 

where she waits, to this day, for god to split it 

in two to be reunited with him.


Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; he has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Jasper’s Folly Poetry Journal, Beatnik Cowboy, One Art Poetry, Black Moon Magazine, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024by Bottlecap Press

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