An Ode to Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Let’s exalt Laphroaig! Bottled poetry, the malt of salt.  

Elvis McGonagall won the Spokefest UK Slam poetry match

and wrote a poem for Laphroaig’s campaign to plaster

their wall with big opinions. Is this the medicine

Laphroaig needs? Options projected, temporal as smoke?

Who will answer McGonagall’s call? We would.

 

So, why the campaign? It’s fun, of course! But we would  

lose any poetry contest. Watching McGonagall rubs salt

into the wounds. We can’t write like him. Our words are smoke

that fades in the morning. We’re no match.

But we try. Unstop the cork and sip our medicine.

We roll our eyes. We think. We gaze at the ceiling, the fractured plaster

 

McGonagall’s words are bombs that plaster

a village. We run to the sestina, but would

need to cheat the form. Let’s hope that laughter is the best medicine

because we offer clichéd phrases without rhyme, the salt

of pleasure. No rhythms, our words burn like a match

struck in the wind. Our first day in The Smoke:

 

Nose: What’s hidden behind the curtain of smoke?

We press our eyes between the cracked plaster

splinters. We strain to see. The dynastic match

for Rob Roy and ice. Is there more than charred wood

bound by seaweed ropes covered in salt?

Yes! It’s iodine behind the peat, that heavy purple medicine.

 

Mouth: Now, they all say it tastes of medicine,

that much is clear. And of course we can feel the smoke.

They all say that too. But have they tasted salt

water taffy? A peculiar sweet that’s pulled like plaster

across a dead man’s face. Saccharine maple wood,

Laphroaig’s scorched syrup, impossible to match.

Throat: Dry and lingering like a dead match

fallen between paving stones. An acrid medicine  

that gnaws on us like wolves in a naked wood,

ravaged by wildfire. But we can never escape the smoke.  

Don’t look back! It soothers us like a plaster

cast turning us to pillars of salt.

 

TopWhiskies Score

Exalted Laphroaig, king of smoke! But we cannot match

McGonagall. We’ve been cut down and a sticking plaster isn’t the medicine.  

No. We would not write poetry again. We’ll sit below the salt.  

2/5 – Let someone else buy you a measure and you can cook with it, maybe you can even add it to the food.