Hemingway's Curse

The writer drinks,
to fill his ink,
but a poisoned mind,
cannot think,
and leaves it without rhyme.

So when he rises,
his head a-banging,
he recovers the mess,
he left hanging.
Just words, letters and lines.

But out of chance,
the writer uncovers,
a sacred line,
unlike the others,
his voice at last sublime.

He crafts a case,
around the verse.
'Drink is a muse
not a hearse.
Love is my only crime.'

In literature circles,
some time later,
the work is in print,
his words greater.
A man whose life is prized.

Now teenage writers,
seek inspiration 
from drug abuse
and intoxication
but instead they learn excess.

We sit in bars,
and pity the drunks.
But poets like him
are heroes and punks
because they've a pen at hand.