Bell's Blues

Staring, vapor locked, at my Hammond B-3 console organ, which dominates my kitchen. Surely a symbol of my madness. I can't help, but think, if the keys were the days of my life, and the black ones represented the bad days, are there enough black keys?? Fighting petulance, self-pity...losing... Wondering if I can stand another minute alone. Atop my organ, music books, and the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, another mad poet. Plagued by physical agonies that merely complete a perfect circle of anguish and distress. Even to worrying of misspelling a word again. Pure lunacy. Remembrance of my 1863 death at Missionary Ridge, something I became aware of as a young child before I'd ever heard of reincarnation. Or just an early sign of the madness to come?? I am lost in a befouling miasma of deep despair. My life's hopes down to 2 desires; one last music band, and taking my son to Disneyworld. Money is meaningless to me. I am well aware that death is as natural as life. And I would venture to guess that the loss of my father, my young cousin Billy, my dear friend Mark Trotiner, and too many others, are "Business As Usual" in this universe. But not for me. Being terminally ill myself is something I have long since come to terms with. And what a reunion it will be!! But I must continue to go on surviving as though I cherish this long and barren life. My writing, especially my poetry, my poet friends, my music, my musician friends, and a few relatives and others; these are the meds that work for me; not the 30 or so pills I must deal with everyday. So thank you all. And now an addendum, one which brightened my day: Mark Trotiner long maintained that he gave Mark Knoffler (Dire Straights) the idea for his hit song "Money For Nothing", when Mark Knoffler came into the appliance chain store he worked in way back then, where he bought, and drove off with several T.V.s, singing the prototype words he'd gotten from Mark Trotiner. Over the years, I tested him repeatedly, looking for the tale-tell deviation in the story one finds in a false tale. He never faltered, he never failed. Continued.....