Poetry Forum

His sickness
was a slavery—
a nicotine addiction—
of shackled bronchioles
and indentured alveoli.
He died panting and bald all over,
a true testament to devastation.

They wheeled him away in pieces;
spare ribs and creosote soaked lobes laid on white wax paper—
as though sanitation were a legitimate issue.
What a queer parting wish,
but then, he was always so.

Seems a little accusatory of this man, this smoker? I dunno, because you make sure to point out that it was an addiction, that he left in a horrible way. So, I guess I feel sorry for him too.

"as though sanitation was..." sounds better in my ear. That's the only thing glaring.

Where ya been lately, Keith? Is fruit being consumed at a high rate these days?

- Caleb

Fruit has consumed my muse. Eight months of 60+ hour weeks has left me quite uninspired.

(!)

Interesting that your muse did not consume the fruit.

A gripping introduction (no pun intended) - 'shackled bronchioles' (good linking of unvoiced stops) and 'indentured alveoli'. I would probably have been tempted to write - 'He died short of breath' for a touch of humour, maybe it would be a bit too much here.

'He died panting and bald all over,
a true testament to devastation.' - A strong vivid image.

The second verse is not as clinical as the first - there's very black humour here.

'They wheeled him away in pieces;
spare ribs and creosote soaked lobes laid on white wax paper—'

Darkest Pythonesque!

Straightforward yet puzzling - where did you get this idea from?

nice one

Barrie

Keith,
you are the Mister Macabre of Poetsgraves!

The idea of addiction as a form of slavery is compelling.
The use of "indentured" is interesting too, since the alveoli are subordinate to the bronchioles.
(btw did the guy swallow his false teeth?

"true testament" ? - this seems a bit of a tautology to me.

"though sanitation were a legitimate issue."
Pseud is right about "was" sounding more natural, but you are right to use "were" since the "issue" is hypothetical. The use of the subjunctive mood seems to be dying out, certainly in everyday speech.
You pays your money.........

The ending - has he donated his body to medical science or are they
cremating him as a giant ciggie?

Another intriguing read
Geoff

Straightforward yet puzzling - where did you get this idea from?

Best not to enter the mind of the Butcher of PG!

What a queer parting wish,

Does this relate to the fact he decided to leave his rotten body to science?

Suitably macabre.

I like it a lot, although I think you could lose the last two lines. Also, I don't think you need "nicotine" in line 3 when lines 4 and 5 five say it so much better. Perhaps delete line 3 completely. Perhaps get rid of "true". Otherwise, great.

What a great read, dark and clinical, two of my favourtie things in poetry. I think that the imagery is strong enough to remove the nicotine adiction line altogether though?

One of the things that got me thinking were the lines

He died panting and bald all over,
a true testament to devastation.

Did you think about how someone out of breath might have said thoes lines, sort of more stop start. Maybe losing the 'and' in the first line and spreading in all over more shorter lines? I love the lines though, this was meant as a criticism it was just what i thought while reading.

But again, a great read!

Adam

Hi Keith. I think the "nicotine addiction" line is necessary. Without it we could be reading of industrial diseases, then the slavery would take a different meaning. Anyway, great work. This was my favourite:-

"They wheeled him away in pieces;
spare ribs and creosote soaked lobes laid on white wax paper—
as though sanitation were a legitimate issue. "

The "were" sounded right to me as well

Nice one.
Mick

Cheers all for the read.

"Were" stays. Tis grammatically correct to do so.

I'll keep the nicotine addiction. I want it that specific.


Must think about the "true" in the testament.

I'm thinking he gave away his precooked parts to the hospital cafeteria. Denatured, I believe is the culinary term. I couldn't figure a place to insert it though.

The macabre butcher is not really that bad. "People think I must be really evil. This is unfair, I happen to have the heart of a five year old boy...in a jar on my desk."