All hail the drunken poet!
a fifth of whiskey in one hand,
a pound of flesh in the other,
like orb and scepter
sitting in sodden sanctimonious state.

Strangling in self-imposed cocoon
staunching the bleeding by swaddling
in something or someone
seeming-safe and comfortable
with agony, with ecstasy, but alone.

Using people as tourniquets,
opiates and spent condoms
as ropes for dirty laundry--
he's not poetic or romantic,
he's pathetic and tragic.

Excusing inebriation as vulnerability,
alcoholism as genius;
he knows nothing of love,
only of obsession, anesthesia,
cheap booze and warm flesh.

Living to die in wounded drama
from one set of willing arms to another,
shotgun bottle between razor-wit lips
never sated, never really touched
writing his own tragedy.