It was in the way his lungs were blackened
Not with the lacquer of cigarette smoke
But with the breath of every lie he spoke;
His words were liquid cancer and they
Spun-spiraled up to the meaning of God
Then tumbled down to crash simple-sake Judas
To the cold, hard, and somehow hushed ground.

It was never so naive to think the trash bag
Full with child molestation facts and hollow,
Empty beer cans would save the feelings; no,
It was only that long until the facts would
Catch up to it all and destroy it in a mockery -
A horrible pantomime of what could have been
If those papers would have been read aloud.


His dream was that of an old retired man;
To sail away on the future of the things
He used to say with a flippant tone:
"O' the day I will count the stars
Of my past and future with dark-eyed angels!"
Then, he thought, there was nothing to write
But the beauty that people had missed.

Return, to this, and find that his dreams
Were nothing but that of a sexual-elitist
Praying on arid dust that his preference
Would not end in empty solitaire games
And tuna sandwhiches ( "I hate tuna." ) with
No lettuce in between the toasted rye
And slightly congealed cheese of America.


All this was found in a simple catch-phrase
That he threw away so lightly, so sardonically:
"My poetry is like stars within my head."
He knew not that some held stars precious,
He recognized not that his own stars would shine
Long after his last vain voyage to the truth:
There was too much poetry to write.

He dimly realized this; breathed it down
Into his blackened sordid lungs, taking a
Deep drag like his last cigarette. "But!
All the cool kids were doing it!" saves
No man on his dying bed, and like this,
"There is no beauty," are words that will
Die on his lips like that final cigarette butt.