Sickness Unto Death

Walter Bargen

July 11, 2022

It wasn’t blood. Too thick unless it’s been a few minutes

And events began to coalesce and coagulate,

and maybe there was again time to think about all of this

yet again, though any thinking had already come up short

and shorted out, wires crossed and touching, the sparks

of little consequence, flesh boiling with charred anger.

If he’d been on his knees he could have licked the ketchup

off the wall, maybe started a new craze like smoking banana peels,

but his anger would never be satiated, even if dessert

was red velvet cake covered with chocolate icing

and anointed with pitted fresh cherries,

but there were the assistants ready to get down

on their knees with soap and water, vacuum, disposable rags,

all brought up from the basement where all the cleaning

supplies are kept out of sight so no one suspects that

this cleanliness that is next to godliness, needs assistance,

and that means employees on the payroll

and everyone taxed to pay for his tantrums.

Walter Bargen has published 25 books of poetry including My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes (Lamar University Press, 2018), Until Next Time (Singing Bone Press, 2019), Pole Dancing in the Night Club of God (Red Mountain Press, 2020), and You Wounded Miracle, (Liliom Verlag, 2021). He was appointed the first poet laureate of Missouri (2008-2009).