Afflicted with this listless death,
I perform my arduous labors
like any other toilsome work,
drive defensively and
eat my $15 dollar dinners alone.
Wearisome days with a pinch of port,
forget to vacuum until the ceiling fan
begins to wobble loudly laden with dirt.

I’ll prick my finger tomorrow.
Abort another bruise, save
the contamination of a clean syringe.
Sleep fatigued after my 5 o’clock shit and
hope no telemarketers call my cell phone.

Yes, I am a patient of Dr. Nicholas Tulip.
Yes, my last doctor’s visit was January 16th.
No, I do not care to take a survey at this time.

Awake now and turn on the six thirty news.
A thousand injections needle into my right heel.
A thousand more cramp into my left arch.
Scratch my ankles, can’t feel my fingernails.
I watch Muslims kill other Muslims overseas.
A Mosalmán is killing others over in France and,
here at home, while I stare at my television walls,
my feet stage their own revolt, coup d‘état.

Eight physicians paid to be included in the painting.
They selected the hanged criminal to be dissected.
Two doctors focus their gaze directly on Rembrandt.
One poses and smiles as if he knows this will survive,
or maybe he displays ego, viewer can‘t tell. The other
doctor holds all of their names written on parchment
in his hand, the keeper of prestige, illustrious posterity.
The praelector himself holds his left in benediction
blessing his anatomy lesson, the manipulated tendons.

This winter was choking cold on the Bosphorus.
I hear ten million Muslims have crossed the Dardanelles
into the Aegean Sea. My own Theatrum Anatomicum
consists of my windshield or admiring these women
over my Dolce & Gabbanas. I can feel my sinister hand
contracting into a claw, feel my paroxysmal heartbeat,
my colic settling over my sight. I am afflicted with
an unstoppable creeping death and my skin blanches.

Ghastly Jisei,
I will wear my Totenkopfring
until my blood drains away.