Old Man and Whisky

My grandfather opens his heart,
Now on his ninety-eighth birthday
He will make out what he had rued.

So he told me: Fairly he’s been drinking
Off and on, he would regret drinking too much
But it was exaggerated, he said
By teetotallers and advertisements
Now he cackles at concern and caution:
‘How much had the extra pegs troubled me?!’

The old man is prepared: come gun or bomb;
He will drink every peg he missed in fright
For the last eighty long years of his life
Reasoning health and the drinking’s failings,
When whisky can be saner than army
When Kakhulong cannot be Nagaland
When you would sell your wife for some money
When war is which side I am supporting.