The moments of lucidity were rarer and rarer, but when they came, he regaled me with tales of swallowed teeth, basement brawls, and AIDS tests administered at midnight in ramshackle midtown health ... [+]
Fresh, rich and healthy as can be
Succulent and stunning
yet delicate in its ethereality
Yet, over time, it has decayed
Cursed with fowl fragrance.
Undesirable, worthless
Mold of old goals.
My wealth, my status,
was beyond most people's dreams,
as a monarch of mammon.
However, over time,
I met financial demise
I wagered myself away
as a slave of my greed.
I now beg at people’s feet
forever a voluntary victim
of the epidemic of avarice
that decays my soul evermore.