GEOFF COCHRANE lives in Wellington. 84 - 484, his sixth book of verse from Victoria University Press, will be published in July. He has also written novels and short stories.
Cochrane comments: ‘An alcoholic worries. An alcoholic frets, and not without good reason. Tomorrow morning’s alcohol is vital: without it, he’ll begin to die. Particularly if tomorrow is a Sunday in the 1970’s, with the pubs and bottle-stores shut up like tombs.
‘An inebriate’s life has importance. Importance, moment, weight — these words apply. And he himself embodies and enacts a kind of probity. Panics and emergencies beset him: he’s always having to encompass damage, rise to fraught occasions, put out lurid fires. And he tires of this, he tires. Tires of the responsibility of being an addict! Not that he’s ready yet to lower his sooty tatter of a flag.’
Poem: Negative Buoyancy
