Old Poet

His eyes are dull,
yellow, sometimes red.
His beard is white,
uncut, unwashed.
He has given up the papers
and the pen, but not
the bottle, his pain reliever
since time out of mind.

He makes his own wine
and damns the wine of older poets.
He murmurs every now and then
some intelligent lines
and still wishes not
to write them with
dead fingers.