April arrives… and with it, National Poetry Month.
But this year, I’m not just writing—I’m revisiting.
Welcome to Whiskey and Words: The Book Tour.
All month long, I’ll be sharing pieces from Whiskey and the Autumn Wind and Whiskey and the Winter Wind—two seasons, two stories, one long road through loss, endurance, and what remains after.
From the slow burn of autumn…
to the bitter stillness of winter…
Every poem is a stop along the way.
So pour a glass, stay awhile, and walk with me through the wind.
Prologue —Whiskey and the Winter Wind
Once again, the cold arrives
without ceremony—
a quiet wind slipping through
the last ragged leaves
as if carrying the truth
I tried to outrun.
Betrayal never shouts.
It fractures in silence,
clean and merciless,
like frost crawling over glass
before dawn has the courage
to rise.
I sit with whiskey
warming the hollow of my hand—
the season’s last gold
caught in the bottom of the glass,
a light fading fast
but not gone.
What warmth remains,
I keep close.
In memory.
In breath.
In the part of me
that refuses to bow to winter.
The winter wind carries voices—
the unspoken things,
the unfinished sentences,
the weight of what should have been.
But somewhere beneath the cold,
an ember stays lit:
small, stubborn,
a fire that does not go out.
Hemingway knew this quiet resilience.
Beckett whispered it—
“Still, you continue.”
And Frost, standing in his own drifting snow,
reminded me
there are miles yet,
and I am not done walking.
So I strip my life
down to what matters—
what carries,
what stays true
when the leaves are gone.
This is the winter wind
I must learn to live with—
cold, honest,
and cutting straight
to the bone.
But tonight,
with whiskey warm against winter’s teeth,
I begin again—
a little wounded,
a little wiser,
and wholly unafraid
to face the wind.