Songs in the dark
The musician
hated fame, the thought of it
made him sick.
Bob Dylan
wanted to cut
a record with him,
but the musician
hated fame
and the magnification
of celebrity.
He hated fame,
a spotlight crossing the stage.
He lived alone
in a house without electricity,
plumbing, or heat
in the winter.
He wrote
a thousand songs
in the dark,
drank a pint of vodka
every day and
mainlined heroin,
gin, and mixed drinks.
He steered
everything into
the bull’s eye
of his broken soul.
The musician,
blind drunk, fell down
the stairs
and fractured his hip.
He was weak,
frail, and ill from years
of alcohol
and drug abuse.
The hospital
sent him home, they said
an operation would kill him,
and a woman
madly in love with his music
nursed him when he
fell into
delirium tremens.
She gave him
a half-pint of vodka
to round off the edge,
and went out.
When
she returned,
he was dead,
sitting in
his favorite chair.
He did not
escape fame.
Dozens of artists
paid tribute to him
after he died.
Demons
danced through
his life and
threatened his sanity
until the
very end
as the last ounce of vodka
swirled into oblivion.
