Where have all the morning drinkers gone?
(not the beardless pool room, school room youth).
Men who know their whisky from their whiskey,
the dapper gents who breakfast on pink gin.
Storytellers, artists, arseholes, bastards.

The first drink of the day shall come alive
regaled by the tallest tales that such men tell
of lovers, horses, fortunes (lost, of course);
the wryness of their smile seen through their glass
becomes such laughter of a scarlet hue.

The ghosts of friends, of barmaids and of ashtrays
now haunt the George and Dragon, Pen-y-Bont,
The Harp, and no reserves to take their place:
No more Alan Birkins, Kevin Kellys.
In death a friend will always seem too young.

The Eleven O'clock Club has now closed its doors.
Its members, literally, a dying breed.