Photographer Unknown, A new Tattoo for Him

I used to be a poet.
My words were traded in marketplaces like pieces of gold.
Merchants bought my verses for as much as they paid for saffron and Indian jade.

Now I am old…
drunk on wine and candle fumes.
Alone in this barren room, I speak my psalms to the night air
so as to entertain moths before they go off to die.
I used to be a poet
and my words were gold.

― Roman Payne