and what grandeour is found in a mind
                         without a single ill?
            esp. when that ill can
alone translate itself
  as an artistic thrill?
                      what fun in fiction,
in the sober mind
     in a mind distancing itself
   from gives the greatest artistic
endeavour, with some ailment -
are not the olympians given
their due share of compliment?
    ah, yes, if francis bacon
painted sober, he really would have
painted...
   and had bach not drank,
he would have invented the polyphony
of two hands knocking on the same door...
ah, but what art is there in
a mind without an ill than can translate
into an artistic thrill?
       poetry and the "art" of being
sober...
                sure: you will get
english teachers' poetry -
   mindful of "techniques" -
ultra-conscious of rhyme, metaphor,
pun, you name it!
            that's not poetry,
         that's dissection -
and as about as much of a tartar steak
as what's clearly a well-done steak...
so much premeditation can
become very, very tedious...
               but then again
i have it easier,
                      i said to myself:
you can't really be an artists and raise
a family, without incurring
              accusations of neglect...
to either spouse, of a child...
  it really is hardly a crying-affair of a man
dying a solitary death...
            if you can laugh-out loud
in your own company, are you really
dying on your own?
                    i had a thought:
      my body, akin to thanatos -
my thought? hypnos -
        talk about a childish wish of always
wanting a twin brother....
          but i know that my body is death -
as i too know that my thought is
sleep - notably in the form of a day-dream...
come the two apart,
              come the two together...
well: i can't & never will become a repenting
alcoholic...
                   i once heard someone
say it's not fun...
                      only when you have
children...
                     god, what a ****** "poem"
it has become...
   all it needed was:
  what artistic thrill ever came from
        a healthy mind,
                             a mind with no
                                   minor or major  ill?
would a world record for
                    the fastest man be
ascribed to the para-olympic T51 - T54
range?
                so i ask again:
what grand artistic thrill,
         ever came from a mind without some
sort of ill?
   none... technique-minding english teachers'
aspirations:
                   as that famous saying goes,
those who can't, teach.