A Night of Illness
sitting here, dead
of the night;
nose running,
violent coughs thundering the injured
from smoking
lungs; liver withers away for there’s
no bourbon to take
the pain away.
I’ve known
sickness but this is different. there’s no
cure, no medicine.
soul’s perishing,
as I try to bet my
life on wild gooses.
when I lay down at
night, I think of the lethal flu.
could I be so
lucky? no way. I’m fine,
just a cold; I’ve
survived far worse with far fewer means.
after all,
survival of the fittest is all about making it
without help.
in this world and
day, the above makes no sense.
we have doctors, medicine, don’t have to die
till you’re 90,
soulless, squirming away from Death’s grip.
staring at the stars,
hoping for a goddamn bourbon to cure me
like it did back
when.
when Emily was
lost. when I was sick, near death, and only
bourbon kept me
alive, no drugs, no pharmaceuticals.
just a daily
bottle to kill the germs, the viruses, all that.
nothing would
survive in my body, not even me.
I cough again,
light another cigarette.
I’ve nothing but
the wild goose chirping away,
few months to
either make it
or disappear into
new jungles, never to reappear.
George Gad Economou