Diseased Arts

Chopin was a pianist
who died of TB
Alexander Graham Bell
picked up the phone
and caught it
Mozart touched Chopin's
keys years earlier
and got it
Gauguin painted a yellow christ
and was struck too
Lord Byron wrote a poem
about a mistress
and that might be how
he got it
Chekov and Dostyevsky
were both Russian
and they caught it
Kafka changed, Keats
was friends with Shelley
They were infected---
not Shelley, just Kafka and Keats
All five Bronte sisters
but not their lesser known
brother Branwell,
he got opium
Emerson transended
and got it
Thoreau lived in a cabin
and got it
Poe cried over Annabell Lee
and got it
Chopin was a pianist
a virtuoso with hellish fingers
and he got it