An aging man wearing
a used field jacket stuffed
full of words
who knows a million things
that won't make any money,
stuck in a culture
where only what can be bought
is good for you.

After one bill is paid,
the next stalks you
like an enemy soldier.

Friends dead or far away;
silence your only true companion.

Marriage failed; children grown and gone.

Days and hours to fill with emptiness.

Mornings broadcast sameness
like endless TV reruns.

The price of intelligence
is constant isolation.

Nothing lasts forever
and today feels like nothing.

Stuck like a refugee
between breath and death.

In the distance, a woeful,
lonely moan from the world.

Too long a sacrifice
makes the heart a stone.

Hope isn't just a feathered thing,
it is an extinct bird flown forever.

Not much time left to live,
but it feels like eternity.

Some mornings you would
prefer to wake up dead
but it's just too much trouble.

Get up, stagger through the day
dragging your life behind you
like a bag full of skeletons.

We all have to struggle
against something.

Cheer up!

After all, with a little luck
it could be the last.

  ~mce