On Sickness

With cough wracking body

Tearing out bits of larynz with hostile bugs

The size of microscopic cockroaches,

Fire breathing dragons,

Joints individually twisted in some medieval

Torture machine .

Nose the source of all swamps and swamp things:

You are not on my mind, love.

I do not traipse poetic with lust or love.

I long not to live,

Care not to reproduce ,

Beg instead for the mercy of death and release,

Hope to wake in another world devoid of politicians,

Taxmen, war , and television tampon commercials.

My mind becomes miserly giving out only

Memories of negativity

Despite my rational thought there must have been

At least one day, this lifetime of woe, to be thankful for.

But no. I am Job.

My God and the Devil

Play games with my life, testing my loyalty

And mock my inferiority.

As my guts burn and my heart aches.

You, my love, look more a source of transplant organs

Than something beautiful and refined and loving.

I asked for a priest, begged you to bring him quick for last rites

And instead you brought that quack

Who said this was the latest flu and it would be through in days.

What does a modern doctor know of Time.

My sickness lasts eternity

For I am suffering unto death.

A common cold is ignomy for my royal hypochondriacal blood.