The Man With The Wasting Disease Poem by Tony Adah

There was a thin frail man
Always on the road to the tavern
His beard was a corn tassel
And he looked a scarecrow
He had his usual place
In this bar that no one ever tried to topple
He sat here
And drank against the doctor's advice
The townsfolks who knew him
Told him to keep to the doctor's rules
But he only laughed at them
With his spaced dentures
Revealing crumps of food hanging in between
Telling them 'something must kill a man'!
He had an old wound
That never succumbed to healing
And he always hid the wound
Under a table where flies never stopped to visit.
Wherever he pissed
A horde of ants and bees and butterflies
Swarmed and had a transfusion
From his sweet urine.
He knew it was diabetes wasting him
And he only gave it his deaf ears.