david labounty

For You

this is for you
because if
you are
reading this
then you
must be
some sort
of
dilettante,
dying
and
trying
to climb
the rungs
of an
invisible and
slippery
literary ladder

and

to get to
the next
level, I've
thought
about trying
to take
things
higher and

I've thought about

slitting
my wrists
with one
of my poems
in my hand and
I picture
it so clean
and perfect, me

at my desk
with my beer gut
and pajamas
while blood
stains my poems
and flows
to the floor
and there I
would be found
by my wife
and there would
be crying and
screaming
along with
police cars
and sirens and

of course

cameras
would come,

he was a poet

the reporters
would say
and from there
it would go
and finally,
I would be
somebody,

and no, I
wouldn't
really kill
myself just
to get my
name into
the world but

would you?


Another Cancer Poem

forty-nine and
not too different
from me as he
stands at
my counter
and tells me about

the small cell
tumors breathing
in his lungs and
the co-pays and

deductibles and
how there
are therapies
and pills and
he finally
has it all
figured out
twenty grand
in the hole
later, how

no doctor
or drug company
really wants
him or anyone
else to ever get
better, they
just want to
string you along

keep you

popping pills
and
taking treatments

while you pay
out your ass

just to stay alive.

~ the above was originally published in Opium Poetry