Old crippled man, charcoal burnt and ashen,
a thousand days debauchery molded you in this fashion.
Haggard and stiff, you can barely walk across the stage--
no one ever thought that you would make it to this age.
Your girth has expanded (although it’s covered well),
but still your piercing voice summons demons up from hell.
Not as strong as it was once, but eerie just the same,
calling those who’ve followed you, who now chant your name,
to assemble in our legions, gathered in this shrine,
where we repeat the catechism, in throbbing metered rhymes.
Are you a madman? Or just a troubadour
who lends melodic shimmer to verses dark and dour.
Whose singing slides and skims along the edge of sanity,
but who never surrendered to the true evil of vanity.
Recovered from drunken, dissolute despair,
to call the faithful masses back, never mind the wear and tear--
to plod the journey of your craft, to sing before the crowd
whose loyalty, to your band, forever is avowed.
Wrote this in 2017