untitled

You must begin again, they said, and still
He wanders, squanders money, has no will:
His heart refusing what his body needs
His head a fantasy of selfless deeds.

I see him sitting there, a weakened man,
A scar upon his chest, yet smoke in hand –
And momentarily I grieve –

But, suddenly, I realize his life,
The sullen eyes, the aged heart, the strife,
Is not so much his burden as his crime
When so much nothing comes from so much wasted time.