my skin is bad. 

my memory is bad. 



my bones are bad. 

my sleep is bad. 



my hearing is bad. 

my prodigal son is bad.  



and you want me to read a poem to feel happy? 

that is not going to work. 



the Happy Poet wants me to be more like Marcus Aurelius, 

but fate made me be more like Edgar Allan Poe, 

with various aliments similar to cholera, hypoglycemia, heart disease, 

tuberculosis, influenza and maybe a tumor in my brain? 

  

and fate also made my poetry writing more in the style 

of Poe— 

depressing, dismal, dreary.  



isn’t a pity?    



“yes, it is a pity 

that a happy poem cannot help you”  a happy poem will not help me