The Sick Poet

He lay in his bed of words

Dying of meaning

The pages of a rhyming dictionary

Torn out, shredded and stuffed

Into a bag that he uses as a pillow

To rest a head bereft of connections

To his senses and his experience

He rarely used a rhyme anyway

Just when the time was right

“No rhyme before its time!”

He jokes to his Muse

Who doesn't get it.

Now every word seems like “orange”.

His hand shakes barely holding a pen

Scratching the pad like a car in a skid

It's his last sheet of paper

Now the pen runs dry

But it doesn't seem to matter

He has nothing to write anyway.