It is an ancient Poet
and he stoppeth me.
“Beware of poetry, my son,
She’s a gold digger.
She’ll chew you up and spit you out,
leave you penniless and lying in a gutter,
drunk on absinthe,
while the rich novelists and scriptwriters
step over you, laughing.”

“Hold off! unhand me, greybeard loon!”
Unheeding, I slunk off to my garret
to compose a villanelle,
heavily derivative of Dylan Thomas.
  
I only wanted to get girls,
but before I knew it
I was roaming with the Romantics,
bopping with the Beats
and cruising with the Classicists.
Popping some Pope, shooting some Stevie Smith
or hitting up Heaney,
I was hopelessly addicted.
And I never did get the girl.

We speak, or rather you spoke
I listened

You'll be fine, you'll do great
You've got so much going for you

I never understood why you said that
Maybe just placating
Weary little broken boy toy me

What good was I, could hardly speak
Or look at faces, just shoes
All shame rotting away
In death trap little future overdose room

More ***** than brain
Felt skin sloughing off
Hair falling out dead anyway
While cancer ate away ulcerous stomach

When looked in mirror
Only saw death, reaving reaper
His scythe my smashed absinthe bottle
****** X marks the spot where
I drag everyone down with me

old hunger makes us sick
forget who we are and
where we're going

how to see thru fog
how to pierce the sky
where's the truth in all this
mustard gas and lies

translucent silken shadows of people
wishy washy wistful thinking like
'o look at big sophisticated words dribbling across page - verbal *****
great philosopher all expression and
thought purge speaking in a vacuum'
petulant little lines for liar's lurid heart
petty little fines growing large from the start

what is this point you speak of and how do we get there
if it is really about the journey and not the destination
then can i get off right now

or

can i be seal eye headlight hi beams
is there trust enough left between us two
to go on down this road together
or part ways at lightning fork in path

no

i go into petrified forest bog
to hide and melt and decompose
bucolic rot under stalwart stoic onlooking trees

you go to riches, glory, ******* and now sprouting planted seeds
misgivings all forgotten like
irreverent, irrelevant childish deeds

and

i grow bitter and ferment
starving gut absinthe
filled with frozen wormwood lies
like Poe and de Quincy and all the rest