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, withered away, 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 fifth 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.