Bitterness
Living on a broken balance
Between obsession and depression
Between moments of joy
And blinding despair
Hope fled long ago
Leaving only the bitterness
Of knowing that nothing will change
For a year they’ve been searching
Watching and waiting for an excuse
To throw me to the curb
Eliminate the expense
And then congratulate themselves
On having a positive bank balance
In the end of the year
While on the sidelines
I fade into obscurity of a stone
A slab of granite among many
In a blanket field
“he fought until his soul did yield”
Is all the world would know of me
And my parents? Collect my works
A single volume of the sappiest
And most cliché trinkets
Of my craft, my art, my words.
Thrown haphazard into a book
For a vanity press to publish in my name
The forward “please be kind, good reader
To the works of our late son.”
As I join the ranks of deceased hack poets.
Why should I expect any less
From the grand U. S. of A.
They don’t even take care of their own
Why should my case make them sway?
My health will fall into decline
And I from all I love
The warm sun, and soft tree leaves
As my body sinks and grieves
Who will cry over my bones
A year after I’m gone?
Even the dogs will have forgot
The man beneath that lawn
