Deferring the Hangover

There is no hangover when you stay under,  
shrink from the savagery above the water,
If you must break the surface, be the crocodile,
with an eye and a blink and not a ripple.
 
Stay down and drink, country can crash,  
carouse and clink, love the girl summoning with lash,
pick fights or arm-wrestle, or stay beer taciturn,
and you can listen and watch the world burn.
 
Stay down and you will not hear the guns plinking,
they do not pause when you come up for painkillers,
bullets tick bodies off like check marks, they jerk  
as they are checked in the battlefield of backstreets.
 
Come up for air, come up for the hangover
only when good winds whisper above the surface,  
when the hearts have eyes, when there is better  
in the houses of government and across the river.