People of the Wild Atlantic Way Photography Project –

Jason Lee – Ballydehob, West Cork.

Here’s a favourite poem of mine by Charles Baudelaire – 

Be Drunk

Always be drunk.
Nothing else matters: its the only way.
So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that
Breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you
You have to be continually drunk.

Drunk on what?
With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.
But be drunk.

As if sometimes,
On the stairs of a palace,
Or on the green side of a ditch,
Or in the dreary solitude of your own room,
Should you awaken and the drunkenness already
Diminished or gone,

Ask of the wind, or of the wave,
Or of the star, or of the bird,
Or of the clock, of whatever flies,
Or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks,

Ask what time it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird,
clock will answer you:
‘Its time to be drunk!
On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.’