Thanks, Facet
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson quotes Dr Samuel Johnson, who says, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"... and right now I'm finding it hard to fight the urge to be angry and full of hate for the people who have hurt me. I don't want to end up like the person in this poem... I just want to find peace... but I really do understand how this can happen to someone who loses the love of their life:
Dr Johnson (2009)
There’s an old man I see on the corner
He screams at me as I walk past
His eyes are black with bitter hatred
He tells me this day is my last
On his body the sores – they are weeping
Leaking pus over malnourished bones
On his urine-soaked rug he’s been sleeping
Soaking odours of rank, vulgar tones
His coarse hands they tremble with fury
At every sane soul that he sees
He laughs, flashing untreated growths
Taunting all to enjoy his disease
With his fingers he scratches the tarmac
Then himself with the black, bloodied stumps
Lacerated, he sheds crimson whimpers
And then gnaws like a dog on his lumps
At a young boy he spits rancid phlegm
At a young girl he whispers abuse
At a priest he sings praise to the devil
At a couple he gestures a noose
Without warning he wails like a siren
Howling pitiful, piercing, sad cries
Now his dark holes – they are seeping
Dirt-stained tears escape tormented eyes
The old vagrant was once Dr Johnson
– a man who at one time had shone
It’s been thirty-five years since he practiced
It’s been thirty-five years she’s been gone
“I knew him back then…” said a stranger
“He just lost it…” he started to say
“It was like someone reached in and took out his soul…
… like both of them died on that day”
So often I’d walked past the old man
Yet only today it would seem
I saw to the root of his hatred
– to the source of his maddening screams
So much praise is bestowed on the stoic
And while there is worth in control
There is also a splendour in falling apart
– stating boldly “I’ll never be whole”
As I looked through new eyes at this vagrant
I saw not the old man broke and torn
I saw a beast formed by the fiercest love
I saw beauty in its purest form
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson quotes Dr Samuel Johnson, who says, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"... and right now I'm finding it hard to fight the urge to be angry and full of hate for the people who have hurt me. I don't want to end up like the person in this poem... I just want to find peace... but I really do understand how this can happen to someone who loses the love of their life:
Dr Johnson (2009)
There’s an old man I see on the corner
He screams at me as I walk past
His eyes are black with bitter hatred
He tells me this day is my last
On his body the sores – they are weeping
Leaking pus over malnourished bones
On his urine-soaked rug he’s been sleeping
Soaking odours of rank, vulgar tones
His coarse hands they tremble with fury
At every sane soul that he sees
He laughs, flashing untreated growths
Taunting all to enjoy his disease
With his fingers he scratches the tarmac
Then himself with the black, bloodied stumps
Lacerated, he sheds crimson whimpers
And then gnaws like a dog on his lumps
At a young boy he spits rancid phlegm
At a young girl he whispers abuse
At a priest he sings praise to the devil
At a couple he gestures a noose
Without warning he wails like a siren
Howling pitiful, piercing, sad cries
Now his dark holes – they are seeping
Dirt-stained tears escape tormented eyes
The old vagrant was once Dr Johnson
– a man who at one time had shone
It’s been thirty-five years since he practiced
It’s been thirty-five years she’s been gone
“I knew him back then…” said a stranger
“He just lost it…” he started to say
“It was like someone reached in and took out his soul…
… like both of them died on that day”
So often I’d walked past the old man
Yet only today it would seem
I saw to the root of his hatred
– to the source of his maddening screams
So much praise is bestowed on the stoic
And while there is worth in control
There is also a splendour in falling apart
– stating boldly “I’ll never be whole”
As I looked through new eyes at this vagrant
I saw not the old man broke and torn
I saw a beast formed by the fiercest love
I saw beauty in its purest form