John Keats

For all his words,
John Keats ended up dying alone in a bed in Rome.

Here lies the Poor Bastard
who ended his world in words and not in love.
Drifting away, eternally, in muddy water ’round
the world, but in the same brown pond where all
other viruses of the same hopeless type remain.

John Keats, may I never know your fate.
I’d rather be better off knowing not
what is to come my way. Better not to feel the
pangs of an empty heart with the cramping of a
writing hand.

Take these words, for words brought
you death and I’d rather die with a lover
by my side than a ghost of pain never forgotten
by a love that came too late.

You can have your glory, for that’s what you always
wanted. Wherefore art thou, John Keats? Where is your elegy now?
Children and schools leave you in the bins and let you fall away
with Hyperion.

All in vain for the sake of fame.
You aren’t that great. You’re a coward and a fool
to let your love slip ‘way and bear the burden of your
name by strangers past her day.

You left in a state of pain, but she in a state of agony
by the lover who was too in-love with words and that of vanity.