“Fill your hand, you son of a bitch.”  — John Wayne before a gunfight in True Grit

According to some
mine is
always full
and
every word of mine’s 
a pistol or grenade
and

while
they may be right
more often than not

they don’t see that 
the weapon and the atttude
are vastly 
self-directed;

that any damage to others
is incidental;

that the thought
that I’ve shed blood
with my words
on purpose

is as unfamiliar to me
as the Duke’s swagger,

which on me resembles
nothing more than
a drunken, stumbling tumble
to the rocks.

My old fingers say
a light bulb ought
to be hot when on,
but the twisted knob
in this bedside lamp
glows without.

My poor brain
can’t get behind
how the speed of
one person’s offhand thought
now shimmers through
a billion screens at once.

When I am gone
I’ll be at least
a bit relieved that
as my consciousness fades,
it will do so as it always has
from the savanna till now.

Also, I am thrilled
to state that my old heart
(as bloated and clogged as
it likely is) can still race
and rock me when I see
the eyes of one I love.

If it is the heart
that kills me it will do so
in the most ancient way:
through overexcitement.
Nothing obsolete about dying
for such a lovely thing.