Classic Poem

It must be a good thing
To reach up and feel a white head
And to put an old hand
on the sharp rough bristles of a neck
that has turned and looked
At pretty women more than fifty years

O you old men
stroking your beards
remembering more than fifty years back
Good dinners pretty women
Think of me who died young
Think of me when you light
your first cigarette after dinner
I too I too was there
I promise you
Every thought of me shall be
Cognac to your blood
Every thought of me
shall be fire to you
I who am dead shall warm you and urge you
I shall show you how to love a beautiful girl
I shall be an old brandy
That lasted only ten dinners
But they were not the dinners of a careful man