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The World According to Whiskey by Tom House
New South Books
190 pages $17
Available at Amazon
impatience is a virtue / and afterthought / a luxury
-- "the masochist's solution"
Tom House's poetry burps from a sour gut or leaks from a deep gash suffered in some collision with the night and its skeleton crew. Some of his verses scream "Oh, my aching goddamn head" and vow not to drink again until the afternoon. His poetry sneers at the deceit of law enforcement in "cassie cops a feeling," despises "all the raggedy ass politics," objects to the word peddling game (most keep score / details and particulars / ways to win influence / beyond me now / I'll keep it blatant), and hurls vitriol when "watching the cable christians - the gaudiest show in town." House slices and dices high-handed authority, governmental or religious: whose business is sin? / let me think about it now / the profits the bosses carry as crosses / the chunky-cheeked priests / lily-white congregations / the cop on the street / organized crime / the judge and his friends / the whims of the time. His murky vignettes effectively underscore the shrewish spirit and tunnel-constricted vision of the look-down-your-nose middle class and mock its concerns and conceits.
When not addressing external issues, House ponders spiritual weakness, human frailty, and vices. An accomplished songwriter and saloon performer, House has a keen nose for the condiments that spice our motivations and eccentricities ("the exhibitionist primps," "ms prissy," "the porno myth"). He also knows intimately the Nashville the Grand Ole Opry never recognizes. In 'jud dealt," House peels whitewash from the Music City veneer when a dealer tells us through the clarity of the injected poppy juice: i been a junky / this town since '47 / wasn't 'til you white / kids came along cops / knew about niggers / and drugs / at all. In "another psych major earns her spurs," wherein a Duke University graduate sinks through the Nashville backwater from waiting tables to hooking, House's non-judgmental humanity is as encompassing as his under-world understanding: night after night / men with their pants down / her attitude got hard / ain't no one tough enough / to touch her now."
In the world according to whiskey, House x-rays the psyche of the night people and the night places, the corporate fat cats and self-righteous public figures with all the acumen and resignation of a surgeon who identifies a massive tumor but knows the removal only prolongs the inevitable, that there is no cure. House is another in the line of lyrical subterraneans, resolutely if somewhat irrationally following the misfit path against the odds and common knowledge, tapping my toe / as if finally I had / heard my song / and understood / its rhythms. His first collection is both timely and welcome.
--William Michael Smith
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