ARNOLD PALMER

I have a confession.
at the Redwood Bar and Grill where I work
I make myself Arnold Palmers
in the server room.
I just learned what this drink is.
It's a mixture of 1/2 ice T and 1/2 lemonade.
It's named after the golfing legend Arnold Palmer.
I've been bussing and waiting tables for about six months now
and I know the kind of people that order Arnold Palmers.
They are usually very corporate
always wearing a collared shirt
and even the drink name itself
speaks of the status of the person educated enough
to know who and what Arnold Palmer is.
It certainly is an elite drink.
Even though there is a dark undercurrent to an Arnold Palmer.
The ingredients are perhaps a metaphor.
Below is the bitter caffeinated reservoir, the shadow side sometimes overpowering.
On top is the citrus mind set, the solar radiance of success and happiness in the world.
But the catch is that the person who orders the Arnold Palmer
is going for the badge of success and power and confidence
often neglecting the shadow side
its going water skiing in the ocean
in the blood of shark victims
there is a certain menace and imprisonment
to the Arnold Palmer
the suburbian repression of chaos and annihilation
a fickle projection of a love for life and yet
there remains an undiscovered and unfounded fear of death
which is the reason for the caffeine
murder for money painted with a smile
if you know what I mean
it's almost as if what they really want is Lemonade
or a laxative
fresh squeezed pure sunlight
the smell of fresh laundry
maybe even the raspberry jelly of an erotic sandwich
and yet the self sabotaging mechanism
cannot allow unfiltered happiness
you know the apple in the garden of eden
the apple is lemonade
and the violent bite is ICE-T
and now we are headed toward the tiny ontological crux
where awareness becomes aware of itself
and thus creates duality
the perpetually changing non change
and the perpetually non-changing field of change
together in an inseparable unified field.
So really the impulse to order an Arnold Palmer
if it is free from spiritual egotism
is a noble one
the impulse to submerge completely
into the mystery
not to analyze and destroy
but to bring to fruition
at the level of the visceral experience
a taste of reality in its totality
not just a superficial happiness picnic
and not just a nihilistic blanket of infinite inertia
but a true integration
of the dark side and the light side
into a complete Vesuvian being
the Holy Eye
circumscribed by the lip of a water glass
a halo
a planet
a beverage.