It Did His Pain In

Henry one eye open and one eye closed, he could pick and choose this way. The same with his mind, open to some closed to the others, he had a “Cross-eyed heart.”

Born with a good ear, at times he felt music could heal him, it took him away.

Henry hardly on fire,  no burning issues on the table, frankly he didn’t care.

Having told all his stories, lacking fire in the gut, it made it hard for Henry to write.

It was sad that he had nothing after a life-time of G-d knows what? 

The ghastly nothingness  Henry felt in old age was reminiscent of Sartre— the cool soberness of existentialism—Henry’s final stop in life before death. 

 “Most of the time, because of their failure to fasten on to words, my thoughts remain misty and nebulous. They assume vague, amusing shapes and are then swallowed up: I promptly forget them.”

Quote from Sartre’s “Nausea.” 

Existentialism the soul-eating virus that changed the equation of life in old age—Henry would meet it face to face— it was nothing he thought.

Henry pitied the writers, the spinners of yarns, the glorious fiction, the mystery, the spy, the ghoulish stuff.  Writing fiction was lying for him.  

Telling the truth was tantamount  for Henry— it did his pain in.