Poet and wine critic Lynn Hoffman ponders another eternal question: Is the glass half-empty or half-full?

The Bad News/ The Good News

Any woman who stirs your soul
is likely more stirred by another.
The woman willing to give you her heart
most likely resembles your mother.

Your portfolio’s withered, it’s taken a dive
A perfect three-meter half-gainer;
The woman to whom you’ve entrusted your life
Had a fling with her personal trainer.

The child who probably loves you most
is not the one that you fathered,
And any god worth praying to
probably can’t be bothered.

• •

To live a single sour hour
is wasteful and dumb and absurd.
And human beans being what human beans be,
the optimist gets the last word.

• •

Most folks who were born on the same day as I
are now sick, broken or dead,
while I, a lucky soul indeed
woke up in a warm, happy bed.

There are babes at the goat in Rittenhouse Square,
There’s deep woods in Fairmount Park
The Orchestra’s alive (it’s starving but great)
And you can walk on the streets after dark.

There is red wine, there are symphonies
there’s Penelope and Victor Cruz,
If that doesn’t make you feel glad you’re alive
There’s lots of attractive booze.