Infirmity
It was the
liver and the lungs.
He had no idea
how long the mundane
and predictable episode would last,
but did not think long,
considering the complications.
It was blood poisoning
that weakened him.
He read
Fernando Pessoa
while shut up
in the hospital,
now there was a prolific writer,
never mind the alcoholism
that eventually killed him.
He wanted out of that hospital,
so he raised a ruckus,
and in the morning they released him
as sepsis continued its battle
with red and white blood cells.
It was the other medication,
the pills prescribed by the psychiatrist
that informed his character
and counseled
his destructive behavior.
He was never
the same, the disease
had taken its toll,
as did the emphysema,
skin cancer, the angina and
coronary heart disease,
He tried his best
to ignore the arthritis in his hands
as he wrote, deciding with
comical levity that great art
demands suffering.
He thought
he had enough suffering from
medical and psychiatric problems
to put him up there
with the Great Poets,
but he was fooling himself again,
as he did invariably.
There were
no longer great poets,
there was an echo that faded
and failed as the street sweeper
swept beyond
the window.
