he declared himself insane
before the world

and the world did worse
than not to
believe or ridicule him

The world
ignored him

He was an old writer
with a body
rotting from the inside
A cancer in his lungs, right
around the heart

Effort made him faint
Oftentimes the effort of sitting
on the toilet and pushing

But when he wasn't on the
toilet he
was at his desk

writing

And smoking. There was
a candle on the corner of his desk
always burning

The rule was that for every
seven minutes spent
not writing he'd hold his hand
above the flame for
seven seconds

His hands looked like decomposing
carcasses of mole-rats

but they could
still hold
the pen

He would go on writing
for the rest of
his life

all seven
hours of it

She followed him home from
the casino
because he
swore he was a gambling addict

A true gambler

he lived only to gamble

Never missed a chance to declare it

"I like gamblers," she
said. "Love 'em to death."

He was all
smiles

and then she continued, "Say, what
about a little gamble
of our own? You down for that?"

"Baby," he said, "long as it's a
gamble I'm down to hells
and below, haha."

Once in the room
she climbed on the bed
and removed her clothes
and shuffled through her purse
and pulled out about a dozen
hypodermic needles

"What you doin' with those?"
he asked

She grinned at him
and spread her
legs and pointed between them
"I'll stick some of 'em
here in these lips. Your part
of the gamble is to
turn off the lights and slide
your way between 'em. Let's go, gambler.
Oh, and no fingers. It's
an all-or-nothing gamble."

she had long
dark
metallic looking nails

and black lips on a very
pale face

the clothes too
were designed to make her look
cold and dead

but she was quite lovely
to her new boyfriend, the mortician

She was an artist, she'd told him
And she'd also
told him that she'd like
to learn more about
human anatomy for her drawings

"That one!" she said on
their sixth date in the morgue
"I want that one! Cut his head
open from forehead
to nape. I need to see
how the brain's
kept in there."

He sighed and prepared the
electric saw. There
wasn't much for him
to complain. He'd done
pretty well
at 47, hooking up with this
22-year-old

The last time they visited him
in the hospital,
mother made the big
announcement

She was once more
pregnant

at 44

Hoping for a second son
of course

Because the first son
aged 21
was such a failure, of course

He will never become
anything worthwhile
Not from this hospital bed
with a broken hip
and spine

It wouldn’t have happened
if his dream
wasn’t to make it big
in the gang

But his dream was to
make it big in the 
local street gang
Serving the cocaine goddess and
hustling his way to the top

Well it was all fine
until that one deal that
went horribly wrong

People die when they stop
dreaming

Now he dreamed to just
die already

Surely his brother will choose
a better dream. He
had to

I liked her dad
He was an interesting guy

preached all day
long
about smartphone
addiction
while his daughter was on her
smartphone, ignoring
him

“A human life,” he was saying.
“Controlled by a piece
of plastic
with lights. A destiny
completely determined by
a machine
designed by corporations to become
god, to claim souls. How
blind, how utterly and
impossibly blind a whole generation
of human beings can be. To
willingly subject
themselves to slavery like
that. Their thumbs
and fingers always tap-tap-tapping
that screen
as if trying to break
their soul free from beyond. But
it never happens. You cannot
break a door
by merely knocking on it...”

“Whatever, dude,” said his daughter
with the phone before
her face

He shook his head and
then looked at me. This time
I too was looking
at my phone.
“I see she has corrupted you too,”
he said. “Shame. I was hoping
it could be
the other way around
just for once.”

I let the phone
down. “Me? Oh no, I was just
checking my e-mail. I've
sent some poems to
a bunch of publishers and
was hoping to
see a reply or something.”

“Hm, and is there any
reply?” he asked

“No,” I said

He nodded. “How about
a beer?”

“Sure. Thanks.”