Better a park bench

Than that bed.

Better a long day on the road

Than those awful nights

Better this nothing

Than that nothing

Better this loneliness

Than that

Better an early winding sheet

Than those suffocating blankets

Better the hard clean living sod

Than that billowing white abscess,

That bed of pus and maggots.

All my life I have burnt and cut myself

Now the cold pure wind

Can extinguish

The last charred hacked remains.

Better this death

Than that.