When I am old with sickness
in every vein,
sleeping on the fringes
of life and death.
When the visions
before the curtain of my eyes
And the dreams backstage
are nothing but
an insurmountable fog.
When my toilet etiquettes are slurry
and my existence a muck
in the diaper -
Shit, piss and the stench of life.
When Alzheimer's is cleaved
to my brain like leech
to the skin.
When I have forgotten my self,
This person -
Who was nothing but a noisy utensil
inside the grand kitchen of
relatives and family.
Who was always an aberration
within the system,
whose complexity was always
simplified, essentialized
with a label, a judgement,
who always remained misunderstood
among his colleagues and friends.
Who was nothing
but an imbecile
performing in the academic circus,
a jester never able to complete
the assigned syllabus,
leaving students and scholars
dismayed, to the end.
One, who was never
literary enough to be
in the literary circle of contemporaries,
or worthy enough to be discussed
in magazines or journals;
A blind man who could never see
what everyone saw,
an unpublished amateur.
When he is far away
from all this civilized rattle,
please come to him (wearing
that maroon or mustard dress)
and recite the verses
that are never to be found
anywhere in the world,
that were written
For you and only you.
Recite those to his
deaf hearing and cloudy vision,
to the demented head in your lap
and tell him -
"Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus"
